


Into the Light of the Dark Black Night

by BewareTheIdes15



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:06:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BewareTheIdes15/pseuds/BewareTheIdes15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Across the space of a thousand lonely miles and approximately four and a half feet of boot-worn, hide-anything-colored carpet, Dean watches his brother twitch. Twitch. Twitch again. Then still, stop. Breathe. Twitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Light of the Dark Black Night

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, you don't even know. I've spent way too much energy on this fic that was supposed to be a little PG-13 ficlet. Sigh. And it's my first Wincestiel!
> 
> My eternal thanks to gedry on LJ, who is basically the only reason that this is actually a fic and not a giant blob of text in my WIP folder.

Across the space of a thousand lonely miles and approximately four and a half feet of boot-worn, hide-anything-colored carpet, Dean watches his brother twitch. Twitch. Twitch again. Then still, stop. Breathe. Twitch.

It's getting better.

Personally, Dean can't remember the last time he slept more than an hour at a go, though he knows it must have happened at some point before Sam's wall came down. On the plus side, it's much easier to sympathize with Sammy this way, since the odds are pretty good that they both passed the signpost for crazytown a while back.

It's kind of disturbing that the guy who just went from angel-God-supernova-of-doom to average joe is probably the most stable human being in the room.

Cas is sitting over on the bed by the door - Dean's still struggling not to think of it as his bed even though he's been bunking with Sam for weeks now - staring at the wallpaper. With his arms sticking out of one of Dean’s shirts he looks tiny – got to find time to get him some clothes of his own – almost malnourished, even though Dean’s doing his damnedest to find things he’ll be able to stomach with his precious-princess sensibilities. Moreover, he seems young, powerless in a way Dean’s not sure he’ll ever entirely get used to.

He's got his legs pulled in tight, arms wrapped around them which either means he's cold again - evidently regulating body temperature is a shit-ton harder than Dean thought - or he had a nightmare or he had a very not-nightmare and he's got a boner again. Apparently when Jimmy Novack left the building, nobody bothered to remind his body that it's not thirteen anymore. Any which way, he looks freaked out.

Or maybe that's about Sam too; maybe being stuck together for days on end like there's an invisible leash tethering them has just gotten them all that tuned in to the same statically wave-length.

The air is humid, Indian-summer mixed with a thunderstorm that's been clinging to the rim of the horizon for days. Throw in the tension clawing at Dean's nerves, sharp-heavy like stale sweat and electricity on his tongue, and he hasn't got a doubt that if he dug his knife out from under the mattress - not the pillow anymore, can't trust Sam with it that close - the blade would leave an oozing slice in the atmosphere between them.

Sam sucks in a breath like he's been trapped underwater, deep and shaky, huffed out just as fast only to repeat the process over and over. Dean's heart does a series of gyrations any pole dancer would be proud of, but he still makes it onto the bed next to Sam in three seconds flat. He's still sort of floundering as to what exactly is happening with Sam, but they've had enough practice by now that he at least knows his part of their makeshift ritual.

Clammy sweat meets his fingertips when he sinks them into Sam's hair, brushes the mess of it back from his face to reveal wide, glassy eyes that are just a shade off of sane. His brother doesn't sink into the touch but he doesn't pull away either, doesn't bite and scratch and tear at anything that gets close like he's prone to doing in the first phase of this dance. It takes a minute or two of just this for Sam to let him in any closer, but once that invisible barrier comes down it’s like every scrap of space between them becomes the enemy, like Sammy’s on a mission to crawl right inside Dean’s skin with him. The fucked up thing is, Dean would let him.

He ends up spread out on the bed on his back, Sam over him, against him, all around. Strong, gun callused fingers dig bruises that’ll never get time to heal before they’re renewed into his back through a t-shirt he’s been wearing for too many days. There’s not even a question that he’s rank by now, they all are between the heat of two bodies their size crammed into one queen bed and Sam’s night sweats, the fact that neither of them can seem to work up the will to let the other out of their sight for too awful long. Cas, Dean’s pretty sure, is just scared of being naked.

Whatever. The water pressure here sucks anyway. And it’s not like they’ve got anywhere to be.

They’d left Bobby’s place because there was too much history there, too many memories of screaming through the door of the panic room and sigils painted in blood. Too many times they’d weathered there when they thought their world was falling apart. Turns out they didn’t even know the meaning of the words.

Since then it’s been endless roads and shitty motels, a stretch of pavement out to nothing and nowhere. No hunts, not yet, maybe not ever again, not when Sam can barely handle sitting in a diner or walking into a c-store without doing his rabid dog impression. Bobby thinks it’s a defense mechanism, some kind of factory default so Sam’s mind can hide while his body protects itself. What it is is a pain in the ass, and basically the most terrifying shit Dean’s every had to deal with – and that’s one hell of a competition.

See, Sammy just sort of melts away under the surface when it happens, idling there in neutral until whatever it is inside of him decides it’s all ok again. He’s still Sam, even then, still will only eat the food he usually likes best, still calmer in the Impala than anywhere on the planet, still lets Dean get closer than anybody else. Then that instinct will crack in two and instead of keeping everyone at bay, he can’t stand not to be touched, needs every inch of his body pressed up against Dean. Cas seems to be a reasonable substitute in a pinch, which is kind of freaky for a dozen or so reasons, not the least of which being that Cas is the one who broke the fucking wall and put him in this position in the first place.

That’s… something to deal with later. Decades, if possible. If Cas was still doing his 'I am angel hear me roar' thing then maybe Dean could take it out on him, want him to pay the same way that he wants to kick in the gates of hell and teach Michael and Lucifer the meaning of divine retribution for doing this to his brother. But Cas damn near burned himself away trying to make it right in the end and what he got for it… well, going by the look on his face when he finally gave in and went to the bathroom for the first time, Dean’s guessing this might just be a fate worse than hell to what Cas used to be.

Why not, right? Dean’s forgiven a lot – forgiven the fucking apocalypse itself – so why not this? Fucked up or not, Cas is family, and Dean’s never known how to not set everything else aside in the face of that. Doesn’t hurt that he can see the way it kills Cas every time Sammy drops out of the driver’s seat and lets his lizard-brain take the wheel. Doesn’t hurt that he knows now - has seen with his own two eyes, had the power of it singeing the hair off of his forearms - that Cas would do anything for them. Anything. If that doesn’t make him a Winchester, Dean doesn’t know what would.

Sam presses his nose against Dean’s throat hard enough that it steals a sliver of his breath, draws in deep, scenting sniffs punctuated by the wet drag of his open mouth. They’re not kisses, not exactly, more like tasting and that’s just how Dean’s going to keep thinking of it. If he has to keep his jacket collar pulled up tight to cover the sucked-dark bruises then so be it. What he and Sam have always been is somewhere on the other side of the tracks from normal brotherly affection and if some confused part of Sammy’s scrambled self translates that into a need to have his mouth on Dean’s skin, it’s not too high of a price to pay. If Sam tends to get hard from it, tries to rut up against Dean until he has to pin Sam’s hips back and make him stop, well, there are worse things.

That's the one truly great thing about the whole crapstorm of Dean's life. At the end of the day, he always knows there are worse things.

***

Sam stretches his arms up high over his head, back arching off of the patched burgundy vinyl of the booth they’re sharing. Dean watches it with his heart in his throat, the same way he does pretty much every single one of Sam’s motions nowadays. He can’t seem to get it through his head that Sam’s not actually made of glass, constantly on edge as though the man brushing past them through the door or the waitress setting her hand on Sam’s shoulder is going to cause some fissure inside of his brother and send all of the crazy pouring free again. It’s been almost two days since Sam went off the reservation – new record.

On the other side of the table Cas is lifting the edge of a pancake with his fork dubiously. Food has been sort of challenge for Cas, finding things he enjoys the taste of and isn’t completely freaked out by the texture. Still hasn’t forgiven Dean for the tapioca pudding thing. It was totally worth it though to see Sam laughed until he was red in the face.

Sam's arm brushes Dean's chest as his brother leans across him for the syrup dispenser pushed up against the wall next to the salt and pepper.

“Here," he holds it out to Cas, amber liquid and glass making a kaleidoscope shadow over the short stack. Cas makes an aborted jerk to try and protect his food before apparently deciding it's not worth the effort. He hasn't even tried a bite yet! Jesus!

"No seriously," Dean chimes in, trying not to sound exasperated even though that's basically become fifty percent of his emotional spectrum. Something has to balance out all the scared shitless. "It’s what they’re for.”

Cas' eyes take a long time traveling back and forth between he and Sam, maybe looking for proof that this is another trick. Dean can only assume he fails to find anything because he ultimately gives Sam a curt, wary nod and watches, tight-lipped, as Dean's brother unleashes a slow stream of sticky gold. It takes another five minutes before he actually works up to taking a slice out of the syrup-pooled pancakes all so he can daintily press the edge of it against his tongue.

He jerks it back almost as soon as it's made contact, eyeing the innocent breakfast food like he expects it spontaneously develop fangs. Dean longs, in a way he can't begin to describe, for a time when fanged griddle cakes would have been the weirdest thing to ever happen to him.

Maybe the strangest part out of everything in the last year - five, ten, thirty - is how this feels. Not natural - Dean's not sure he's ever felt a single ‘natural’ thing in his whole life - and not easy but... right, in the wrong way, maybe. Or wrong in the right one. Three puzzle pieces that don't connect to any picture, but somehow, their jagged edges fit together.

Reaching for the sugar, Sam jostles him again accidentally, their sides pressed together in a smooth, warm line. This would probably work better if one or the other of them sat on Cas’ side of the table since he is technically the smallest of the three of them; wouldn't have to leave Sam's leg hanging partway out of the booth where anyone could bang against it and somehow set off a domino effect of psychosis, but this is how they sit, have right from the very start.

Cas finally lays the piece of pancake tentatively on his tongue and closes his mouth, chewing distrustfully. When he goes back to the plate for another bite, Dean gives some serious consideration to tearing up a few napkins for impromptu confetti. Sam just grins at him over the rim of his coffee mug.

***

It’s blazing hot when Dean gets back to the motel but he still lingers in the car for a few seconds longer, listening to her tick down as she settles. Having Sam out of his sight, even for just the hour or so it had taken him to pick up a few supplies - alright, mostly Adderall; the caffeine pills just aren’t cutting it anymore – was enough to put him on edge but somehow he’s still a little hesitant to go back inside. Sam could be just fine in there, still trying to teach Cas poker or explain _Wheel of Fortune_. Or he could be huddled in a corner snarling like an animal and snapping anytime Cas even thinks about moving. Going inside means finding out which, dealing with the result, and for just a moment Dean’s balanced there on the razor’s edge between the fear of knowing and the fear of not.

Then he tells himself to shut up and shoves open the car door.

He’s greeted inside their psychedelic orange and yellow monstrosity of a motel room by the quiet babble of an afternoon talk show and the patter of the shower running. And no one else.

“Sam!” he barks urgently, panic catching the words in a thorny snarl. “Cas!”

“Dean!” echoes back at him in Cas’ strained voice. He practically throws himself across the room in the direction of the sound.

The bathroom door is ajar when he reaches it, parting like a curtain before the scene. The tiny enamel tub is packed full with both his oversized brother and Cas stuffed into it, both of them soaked to the skin from the stream of water beating down on them, shining off of their water-darkened clothes. Dean nearly skids on slick tile when he makes a move toward them, shower spray spilling over onto the floor where they haven’t bothered to close the curtain.

He doesn’t need to stick his hand in the water to know that it’s turned all the way to cold, the air in the little room all around them permeated cool by it, both of them shivering and blue lipped.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he’s snapping at Cas without a second thought. Muscles clench and rebel for half a second when he leans into the spray to shut off the water and start gathering Sam up off of slippery pink ceramic. His brother lets go of his death grip on Cas to latch onto Dean like a leech, bare feet and elbows squeak-skidding as he lets himself be manhandled up, thankfully taking at least a portion of his own weight. The cold bleeds through Dean’s clothes from Sam pressing in tight to him the second he’s upright, body quivering.

“No,” Sam breathes out, barely audible through the chatter of his teeth. Something in his voice says it wasn’t really directed at Dean anyway. “No.”

There’s a loud squeal as Cas struggles to get himself out of the tub too, almost losing his balance with one foot free. Dean reaches out to steady him automatically even though he’s got more than a handful already just keeping Sam standing. It’s mostly a grip on the towel bar that keeps Cas from taking a header, but he briefly clings to Dean’s forearm anyway, just long enough to be noticeable and Dean can’t make himself let go until Cas does.

A flash of shared fear shouldn’t be anything like reassurance, but it’s the closest substitute Dean’s been shooting up lately.

Sam shivers like he’s about to shake apart, the pat of heavy water droplets following them across stained shag carpet to the bed. It’s a fight to get him out of his clothes – just enough taller than Dean that getting his shirt off is a challenge, wet denim a pain in the ass any day of the week. Dean doesn’t know when Sam stopped wearing underwear, but right now he's grateful.

“He insisted he was on fire. I didn’t…” Cas swallows heavy enough that Dean can hear it as he lowers Sam onto the bed, lets himself be pulled down to sit next to him. Sam whimpers and almost immediately presses his face into Dean’s hip, one hand clutching at his thigh. Soaked hair leaves a streak like a transparent bloodstain on the sheets, leading up to clenched-shut eyes and open, panting lips. “I was uncertain.”

Hovering at the end of the bed, Cas has his arms crossed tight over his heaving chest. A shirt that’s big enough to probably be one of Sam’s is clinging wetly to his skin, gaping in places, collapsing in on itself in others where Cas doesn’t even come close to filling it out. He looks so damn much like the kid that Dean’s constantly having to remind himself that he’s not, so maybe it’s not entirely a shock when Dean finds himself motioning him over.

Cas isn’t any more helpful in the getting undressed process than Sam was, but at least he’s not as much of an active hindrance. For the most part he just stands there in the space between the beds with his eyes locked on Sam’s shuddering, helpless form as Dean works each of the slippery plastic buttons and slowly strips away the drenched cotton. The faded tee underneath fits better, if still too big, making it either Dean’s or something that Sammy dug out from the very bottom of his clothes stash. Even wet the fabric is soft, thin enough that Dean worries it’s going to shred like wet tissue when he snags his fingers in the hem and orders, “Arms up.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Cas complies, letting Dean peel the fabric up over lean, fluttering stomach muscles and the ladder of exposed ribs before bending at the waist to let Dean pull it all the way off of him without standing up and abandoning Sam. The shirt joins the first on the floor with a plop that Dean’s given up hoping is ever going to not remind him flayed flesh.

Every follicle on Cas’ body is standing on end, his skin taut with goosebumps and still not nearly enough meat on his bones. He doesn’t really seem to notice, or at least doesn’t care enough to do anything about, the glittering trails of water still trickling down his neck and chest, dripping off of his hair to land on the jut of his chin.

There’s barely even a flinch when Dean pops the button on the jeans hanging halfway off of Cas’ hips. They fall to the ground effortlessly from there, probably wouldn’t have taken more than a slight tug to get them off in the first place. Next Goodwill they see, Dean’s stopping.

Whatever influence Sammy may be having on their honorary sibling, Cas hasn’t taken to going commando yet. The briefs he’s in are definitely Dean’s because Sam started going for boxers sometime in his junior year of high school. The white fabric is molded to him from the water, translucent, and Dean’s eyes rocket away before he figures out that there’s nowhere safe to look any more. No part of his life that isn’t a glaring tally of his failures as a brother or a friend or a half-decent person. _A righteous man._ It’s been a long damn time.

Out of desperation, what he ends up staring down is the back of his own eyelids, every particle of his being aching with exhaustion the moment they’re shut. He doesn’t even realize he’s resting his forehead against the cool, water-tacky expanse of Cas’ middle until he feels a hand settle reluctantly on the back of his neck. They should probably have some kind of discussion sometime about how physical comfort works with regular people – Dean has a feeling that he and Sam probably aren’t the best example for Cas to be going by.

“You did good, Cas,” just barely croaks out of him, like every last ounce of weariness hiding out in the dark corners of his body decided to escape on that one breath. He says it because it’s true, because there’s nothing else that could have been done. Because the words he means never seem to be close enough at hand to latch onto or pure enough to speak. Because if there are words for any of this, no one ever bothered to teach them to Dean.

***

CCR is blasting over the radio and for reasons Dean’s sure he’ll never really get, it just seems to fit into the picture with all the rest; crisp air with the blunt edge of autumn-cool sliding silken through the open window, carrying the smell of hay and still-green grass and asphalt, Sam with his knees jammed up against the dash the same way Dean’s been swearing for ten years is going to wear a hole in the glove box one day, elbow crooked out of his own window, hair whipping in the breeze, Cas’ hands dangling over the back of the seat between them where he’s leaned as far forward as he can get to stare out of the windshield. Easy. Relaxed. So close to the border of happy it makes Dean’s chest clench in terror.

Out of the corner of his eye Dean can see them both perk up as the dot of another car appears over the next rise coming their direction, the sun turning it into a shadow until it’s almost already whipped by them.

“Grey! 8-3, my favor,” Sam chirps delightedly, never happier than when he’s winning. He tosses an M&M up in the air, leans back to just barely catch it in his mouth, popping him on the lip before tipping in.

“I believe that was beige,” Cas points out, head still turned back to follow the receding shape of the car. He’s getting better at having affect when he talks – or maybe just feeling things more – but it’s still hard to say whether that was sullen or thoughtful or just a plain old statement.

Any which way, Sam ‘psh’es over it and pops another candy into his mouth. “Grey,” he mumbles around the mess of peanut and chocolate.

“Grey is a specific subset of colors comprised of a mixture of black and white. That was-“ the rest of their lecture on the color wheel chokes off when Sam masterfully aims an M&M directly into Cas’ open mouth. He coughs and splutters and makes a hell of a show out of it – gag reflex is a brand new experience too – ending up with the candy leaving melty-wet smears of blue all over the palm of his hand. He glares from the artificial coloring marring his skin to Sam and back with an intensity that half a year ago would have literally made them both burst into flames.

Now it just makes Sam guffaw and God help him, Dean’s along for the ride too.

“That wasn’t funny,” Cas clips out, but Sam’s still bent as far over his knees as the car will let him and Dean’s doing his best just to keep them on the road. It’s the manic, desperate kind of laughter, the sort that tends to crop up after a rough hunt, a near miss, like they have to pack in every moment of it that they’ve missed or could have missed. Dean feels about ten years younger for it – which still leaves him feeling practically geriatric – and that’s all before the sticky piece of chocolate Cas just hacked up beans Sam on the back of the head and mats in his hair.

Sam’s eyes blow wide, laugh dying partway out of his throat and Dean’s heart tries to do the exact same thing. The instant, constant worry is swept away just as quickly when Sam’s gaze flashes over to him accusingly, his free hand pawing at the sugar gumming up his hair while his mouth gapes open on an incredulous ‘O’. Anything Dean might have said in his own defense is lost because he’s laughing again, desperately relieved, fingers so tight on the steering wheel he can feel his knuckles popping.

Doesn’t really matter anyway because Cas is sitting in the back looking eight different kinds of smug – he’s clearly been picking up bad habits – leaving very little doubt about what just went down.

No surprise considering Dean lived through this moment a couple hundred times in his childhood, the candy starts flying. Sam pelts a handful of M&Ms into the backseat, ducking down in the seat for cover as the candies scatter like buckshot. His head’s practically in Dean’s lap – way bigger than when Dean was the one in his place, crouching down next to Dad in the driver’s seat – which means they both get peppered when Cas returns the volley of sugary projectiles.

“Ow! Hey! What the fuck?” he fires over his shoulder at Cas, but the reformed angel is too busy being bombarded by Dean’s little brother to answer.

Hard candy shells ping off glass and metal and plastic, some bound to have rolled under the seats and Dean silently promises his baby that Sam and Cas will be vacuuming her out later, come hell or high water. He has a feeling she wouldn’t mind though; what’s a little mess compared to this – being home, really home for the first time in years. If either of the other two notice that Dean’s eyes are wet they probably assume it’s from all the laughing.

***

They’re riding through that fuzzy stretch of time that’s not really night anymore and hasn’t quite made it to morning yet. On either side of the black, endless stretch of road rising steadily out of the darkness there are pine trees, tall spires one shade of midnight deeper than the star-studded sky above. Dean lost track of what state they’re in weeks ago, driving just to drive, because it’s a little less maddeningly real than sitting still.

He knows there’s something playing on the radio but for a million dollars he couldn’t say what, every spare scrap of his attention zeroed in on the sound of Sam’s sleep-steady breathing on the other side of the benchseat; a lullaby and the tick of a time bomb all at once. Cas has his arms folded on the back of the seat again, chin resting where they cross because apparently he doesn’t know how to ride in a backseat properly. Dean would inform him except he sort of appreciates the company.

Between his fingers dangles half a strand of broken rosary beads he found in the trunk a while back, the soft click as they bump together with the motion of the car a white noise counterpoint to the hiss of crickets and late-bloomer cicadas. Dean didn’t mention it when Cas decided to hang onto them because it’s part and parcel with one of a couple of thousand things that they haven’t found the time or inclination or way to talk about. His best theory is it’s not religious since from the little bit he figured out about the whole heaven and hell thing, denominations don’t seem to mean squat, but whatever else Cas’ near compulsive tendency to have them with him is, Dean couldn’t hazard a guess.

They don’t talk the way they used to – too much stretched out between them that neither of them have ever had the equipment to bridge – but there’s a lot that passes through the silent hours like these, both of them watching over Sam for signs of trouble, both pretending that they’re not. Sammy probably sleeps twice as much as Dean and Cas put together and even that is barely enough to live on going by the dark circles under his eyes. Dean tries not to think about. Tries not to think about anything, even though that seems to be his one and only pastime nowadays.

If they do talk in the middle of their unacknowledged watch, it’s usually about Sam, reassuring themselves and each other of the tiny signs they imagine as improvement by the simple act of saying the words aloud. Otherwise it’s a discussion of small human things, bits and pieces that have Cas confused or conflicted; the proper length of time to make eye-contact without creeping people out, urinal etiquette, why it’s called a Three Musketeers bar even though there’s only one of them. Mostly though its silence full of glances that say too much and too little, then go skittering away like roaches in a sudden flash of light.

That’s why, more than anything else, that Dean nearly jumps out of his skin when Cas says, “It’s faith.”

The tires don’t quite make it to the corrugated shoulder of the road before Dean yanks the wheel back in the opposite direction to right them, heart jackhammering against his ribs from the hot-cold adrenaline rush. Sam snuffles, readjusts his head on the wad of jacket he’s made for himself against the window. It had been on the tip of Dean’s tongue before to offer his thigh as a pillow instead, but as much of a kid as Sam can act like when he’s all pulled together now, he’s still probably too old for it to be ok to sleep with his head in his brother’s lap.

“Being in love,” Cas continues after long enough of a moment to be sure Sam wasn’t going to jerk awake, “It is faith. But in a person.”

There’s not a single word in there that doesn’t make Dean nervous as a cat in the dog house. He’s sort of falling back on the patented Winchester ‘don’t say anything and the subject will drop’, but Cas has never been very good with that and it’s only gotten worse since he started spending all of his time around Sam.

“It isn’t possible for that to be wrong.”

Dean can’t stop himself from huffing, stomach tight, a sour taste creeping up the back of his throat. “Lots of people had faith in God. In Lucifer,” he mutters back, staccato. Doesn’t say ‘In you’ because it’s already written out on the air, on the tension strung between them that’s never quite melted away even though he truly has forgiven Cas. Because if he said it he’d have to follow with ‘people like me’ and ‘you proved me right in the end’ and that’s a place he’s not ready to go. Not yet. Not ever maybe. He feels like he’s been thinking that a lot lately.

“And they were misguided,” Cas says back, an encyclopedia worth of subtext crammed into a few flat syllables, “but their faith was not.”

It’s succinct, final, brooking no argument even though Dean knows there is one, that there are dozens, thousands and all of them are sliding from his grasp as futilely as trying to pin a shadow.

What he ends up with is a tar-black spill of, “If you’ve got something to say then say it,” hissed out like poison gas. His foot is suddenly lead on the pedal and his eyes are locked on the flash-pattern of the center-line ticking away the distance beside them. He’s not exactly sure what they’re talking about here, but the stakes feel high, all-in on one hand and Dean’s not even allowed to look at his cards.

And lo and behold, it works, fast pumping turn-over of the engine and the click of rosary beads the only sounds in the night. Cas sinks back into his seat, eyes still glittering thoughtfully at Dean in the rearview mirror. Over the years Dean’s gotten good at not looking back.

***

He probably shouldn’t be surprised. The signs were right there, after all, but when has Dean ever been any good at seeing what he didn’t want to? So even though he shouldn’t be, he’s still floored the night he walks in on them.

Sam’s a big guy, all the time, in everything that he does, but up against Cas he towers, looms, swallows whole. He seems all arms and legs compared to Cas’ compact body folded in against him; all soft-looking, shiny-wet mouth sliding over Cas’ fumbling lips. Cas, for his part, doesn’t look a damn thing like anything that even knows what angelic means, ruffled and flushed like a promise of sin, like a little boy who’s got no clue what to do with his tongue or his hands. His mouth is pouted against Sam’s, wide open and glossy with spit. He makes this noise that’s nearly a whimper and goes up on his toes, pushing against Sam when it looks like Dean’s brother is already taking every ounce of his weight.

They’re standing in the middle of the half-crumbled living room of the house they’ve been squatting in for the last few days, framed by blue moonlight and shadow, moth-eaten curtains and mildew-stained furniture in pieces all around them like their own tiny version of the apocalypse that never was.

Sam handles him with the casual, possessive ease that he has with everything from guns to lock picks to a Dewey decimal index; shifting and arranging him in a way that doesn’t just expect to be obeyed, but is completely oblivious to the idea that it might not go that way. Even now that they’ve bought Cas clothes that actually fit, the press of Sam’s hand between his shoulder blades, gripping at his hip, makes him look miniature, like he shrunk a couple of sizes in the wash while Dean wasn’t looking. Shit, maybe he did – seems like plenty’s been going on without Dean seeing it.

Sam’s hips roll a little, more like instinct than a calculated come on, just enough that someone who’s eyes are locked on the way the two of them are slotted together could make it out. Cas paws at him like it’ll save him from drowning. He’s mewling and whimpering, losing these puppy-ish growls every now and again because he just doesn’t know any better, doesn’t have the shame to hold them back. He looks like he’s in heaven and Dean’s not sure who he envies more.

There’s not a sound but their harsh breathing and the inhuman – too human - noises eking out of Cas and the deafening throb of blood in Dean’s ears, so he hears it just fine – can’t stop himself from it - when Sam pulls away to slide his mouth over Cas’ cheek instead, leaving a glittering trail of saliva that catches silver in the low light, and whispers, “Shh. I’ll take care of you.” It may very well be the most illicit thing Dean’s ever bore witness to.

He runs. Out of the front door, across the rickety porch, down the beat up gravel lane that might have once served as a driveway. Runs like his life depends on it, because that’s all he got. Runs until he hits the main road and realizes he can’t go any further without actually leaving them behind. Without turning his back and walking away completely, starting some new life – lie – and go back to pretending he doesn’t know what’s out there in the dark or that those monsters will never be half as bad as the ones living inside his head and his heart anyway.

Dean stands there with the tips of his boot soles pressed against the border of asphalt until the sun slips over the horizon like a razorblade spilling orange all over the sky. Until his legs won’t hold him up any more.

***

This is the problem with having been to hell – it messes up the way you talk forever. No more ‘hot as hell’ or ‘go to hell’ or ‘hell of a time’; it’s all too real, too much of a comparison to be made in concrete terms. So Dean knows it’s not the truth when he thinks to himself ‘this is hell’ because right now he’s not at all sure he wouldn’t prefer the pit.

They’re somewhere in the northern part of the Midwest – the bite in the air and all of the cows enough to give that much away – in an ocean themed motel room that makes fuck-all sense that Dean can think up. It smells like burnt rubber and aerosol air freshener and the heater is, as usual, shit. Sam and Cas don’t seem to mind though, considering their piled into one bed, Sam trying and failing to explain why it doesn’t really matter where the Arc of the Covenant is, that’s not what the movie’s about. Cas continues to look skeptical, but he has at least agreed that Indy knows what he’s doing with the whip.

None of it’s really couple-y and if Dean had seen it a week ago he would have been fighting back an obvious grin at how not crazy at all it is. Now all he can see is the way Sam’s shoulder bumps Cas’ where they’re sitting back against the headboard, where their jean-clad thighs brush together, how Sam’s weird little habit of rocking his foot back and forth makes it rub against Cas’ almost like they’re playing footsie. Now, it’s just wrong, all of it, turns his guts upside down and makes them play Twister. The uppers-and-whiskey cocktail he’s been living on for four days straight might be a contributing factor there too.

He’s been trying to push all of those negative feelings down because damnit, it’s Sam and it’s Cas and they’re happy. That’s as much as he could have ever hoped for but it’s still all turned around and messed up.

They’re not even bothering to be subtle about it either; all smiles and goo-goo eyes, probably rubbing all over each other the second Dean leaves the room. Ugh, maybe more than rubbing. Sam wouldn’t do that, would he? Mr. Emotional Sensitivity has to have figured out all of the reasons that would be way over the line, right? Sure, it’s been a while since Sam got any, but he wouldn’t actually take advantage of Cas like that. He’s only been human for a few months – it’s practically pedophilia.

Except Sammy’s judgment has always kinda sucked when it came to picking bed partners and he’s not exactly thinking 100% straight these days. What if he really doesn’t get it? What if he’s unintentionally pressuring Cas into things he doesn’t understand or taking steps that neither of them are ready to handle psychologically? What if they think they're doing something good for themselves when in reality it's just going to end up tearing them both to pieces when their traumas collide? What if-

“Hey! Hands to yourself, Romeo!” Dean’s snapping before he even realizes he’s going to.

Sam stalls out in the middle of reaching across Cas for his bottle of Coke on the nightstand. His eyebrows are making a slow crawl toward his hair line, wide hazel eyes flittering over to meet Cas for a meaningful look before locking back on Dean. Carefully he draws his hand back from the soda.

"What’s your problem?” his brother says slowly like Dean’s the one here who's lost his marbles and damn if that doesn’t crawl right under his skin and bristle.

“If you’ve gotta ask the question, Sammy…” he snaps. Another one of those looks vibrates across the too-small space between Sam and Cas and just like that, Dean can’t. He just can’t.

The motel door bangs shut behind him, cold air sinking through his shirts immediately to burrow straight to the bone. Of course it would be too much to hope for that the door might actually stay shut, so naturally it only takes about fifteen seconds before Dean hears the cheap weatherproofing scrape on carpet again. A warm swath of yellow light cuts over the parking lots, twin shine on the Impala's hood to the streetlamp shining over by check-in. As if he couldn't damn well feel that presence behind him as the light blots out again, the reflected shape of Sam's body wavers in the mirror-shine of black paint for confirmation.

“Did I miss something?” Sam huffs at him. Dean can see the pissy expression on his brother's face without even turning around to look at it.

It's unfair how easy it is for Sam to get his hooks into Dean and tease out all of the things he wants so badly to stay buried, a little brother superpower that never had a damn thing to do with demon blood.

There are going-on a million answers to that question, most of them Dean doesn't even feel like he knows himself, but the one he tosses back, a growl in his voice that seems to stoke the fire in his belly instead of burning it off, is, “He’s a kid, Sam. Whatever he looks like, whatever you think he is, he’s a little kid and you’re molesting him.”

"He's thousands of years old, Dean!"

"Not with this!" he's stepping up into Sam's space and his brother's not backing up. The hopeless, packed-in desperation of every day since Detroit - maybe even before then - surges up in him, spitting out in every direction like a match dropped in a box of fireworks. It feels so goddamn good. "Just because he knows the mechanics doesn't mean he gets it. He's the slow kid in class, Sam, and you're bad-touching him all over the place! You're supposed to protect him!"

And maybe it's contagious because he can see the spark flare in Sam's eyes, closing the gap between them with another stride of long legs until the white cloud of his breath is breaking over Dean's skin.

“Don’t you dare! Don’t pull that on me. The best thing about being raised the way I was was the fact that _you weren’t Dad_ , don’t sit there and turn into him on us now!”

 _“Well somebody’s gotta since you up and decided that you’re gonna be his- his _corruptor_!” Dean splutters back so high on the flash-fire roaring through his veins that the world's spinning just a bit._

Sam gives him this smile that's nowhere in the neighborhood of real, more like a scowl turned on its head. “Man, if you haven’t figured out yet what I am to him in this jacked little family of ours then you’re blind.”

It's too controlled, too low and sure of itself, and it just pisses Dean off more, those hooks of Sammy's yanking at something not meant to be messed with. Directionless panic floods in alongside the rage, acid-hot, slinking through his limbs . He needs Sam to be up here with him, like old times, going toe to toe - needs for a second to forget that he lives in a world made of cardboard and spun sugar, to just for once, not hold back.

“What's that supposed to mean?” he yells, all out yells. That thing in Sam's eyes sparks again, a round tapped off by the firing-pin but instead of a lead slug in his flesh, what Dean gets is frigid metal slammed up against his spine and a hot tongue sliding into his mouth.

The drivers' side mirror is stabbing painfully into his hip, his balance precarious and entirely dependent on the sturdy bulk of the Impala as packed gravel shifts under his boots. That's probably a weird thing to be focusing on right now actually, but the alternative is dealing with the slick demand of Sam's lips plucking at his own, a challenge and a dare, fucking sibling rivalry written in every whuff of breath. Except for how 'sibling' doesn't really belong anywhere close to the dirty wriggle of Sam's tongue sliding underneath Dean's, tracing it back to his molars and then curling in this way that makes Dean's thoughts fuzz out like dialing in to a radio station too far in the distance.

Then again, maybe that was just the sensation of his brain kicking into gear because just as fast as that, he's shoving Sam off of him, the skid of lug soles on pebbles loud in the new-fallen silence.

“What the fuck are you doing!” punches up straight from the hot, pulsing knot in Dean's stomach.

Sam smiles, dark and smug and too damn like that Sam that _wasn’t_ to do anything but rip the breath right out of Dean's lungs. “Just thought after all this time you’d want to know what he tastes like.” Smirking bastard has the nerve to lick his damn lips, like they weren't already too shiny to possibly look away from.

Dean's, “Fuck you!” comes out molten, the pumice crust of it cracking around the edges. Holding back flew out the window on sin-black wings and all of a sudden Dean's just trying to play catch-up.

“Oh you’re so full of shit," Sam snarls back, encroaching on Dean's space all over again, "Tell me one person besides me and Dad who’s ever meant more to you than Cas does. Seriously, name one. You’ve been a little bit in love with him for so long it hurts to watch, so yeah, fuck it, I’ll take it if you won’t. If you’re that bound and determined to never let yourself have anything you actually want, then yeah, I’ll take it for you. He deserves something at least. And so the fuck do I.”

“You _deserve_ something? What have you ever asked for that I didn’t give you? I gave up my fucking soul for you, you ungrateful little shit!" There's not enough air in the world to feed Dean's lungs, every gulp of it scalding-cold against his throat, spreading out through his chest, and Sam's right there, the sliver of space between them a palpable threat. "So go on, tell me, tell me one fucking thing I’ve ever denied you.”

Whatever it is in Sam's eyes dies a fast death, snuffed out between one blink and the next. Something worse than the sick twist of his gut bursts inside of Dean, pouring out into his body like infection. Oh God, Sam. Months of walking around on eggshells and here Dean is yelling at him, pushing like he's actually looking for a trigger to make Sam lose it. His instincts shout at him to grab Sam, to hang on with both hands and make him stay, don't sink under again. He's halfway to doing it before Sam pulls away, pushes off of the car, shaking, and flings a look in the direction of the room.

The curtain over the window sways at the edge and Dean can't even bring himself to care right now that Cas might have just seen all of that because Sam lets out a finely-minced breath and does this impossibly slow blink. When he opens them again, they're not flat, just worn out, the same as Dean's felt for what seems like forever now.

Sam turns his head back in Dean's direction but doesn't actually meet his eyes, gaze stuck somewhere around the front left tire. Low and defeated, he says, “If you have to ask the question,” as he walks back to the door and leaves Dean standing out in the cold with his hands out for something that isn't there anymore.

***

In the early days, the very early days, just one or two after things went one degree shy of nuclear and Castiel became Cas, his friend had sat on an uncomfortable aluminum chair at Bobby's directly across from Dean, Sam tossing fitfully on a cot between them in that semi-coma he fell back into for close to a week. The two of them had barely spoken at all since it went down, nothing to say about it and way too much, but Cas finally said something, one soft-spoken phrase ringing like a tuning fork through their whole silent vigil.

"Being human is vastly overrated."

Right about now, Dean can't do anything but agree. He's got this throbbing behind his eyes like in the fall when they'll run through a part of the country where the ragweed dusts the Impala electric yellow-green and Dean's sinuses go on strike. It's the wrong time of year for that, though, the first flurries of snow already starting to accumulate on the ground as they drive through wherever the hell they are.

Bone tired shouldn't be that new of a feeling considering Dean's been living on it all this time but the headache's just putting a spotlight on it. Even with the heater cranked all the way up Dean's starting to shake a little from the cold and all it does is make him think about Lucifer and wonder if they're going to have to move to the tropics to keep Sam from going PTSD on them every time the thermometer dips.

Sam seems to be doing fine though, in as much as he's ever likely to be. He still wakes up in the middle of the night as somebody else three quarters of the time - a feral animal packed into his brother's body - but the transition seems less violent now, especially when Cas comes over to sit on the edge of the bed and rest his hands on Sam's skin. If it wasn't for all the ways Cas is obviously all human, Dean would think he was pulling that old healing trick of his.

In all honesty, he's been expecting for a while now that Sam would move over to Cas' bed, seeing as they are whatever the fuck they are now. Instead he's still there with Dean every night, two oversized men crowded into a queen bed trying not to touch until that switch flips in Sam and all he wants is contact. It doesn't make any sense, but asking about it would mean actually discussing the whole Sam-Cas situation and that's a big, giant no. Dean doesn't need the details. The looks and lingering touches, the occasional quick kiss is enough to have Dean's skin itching on the inside.

"Dean?" Sam's voice is soft, rich with concern. It takes a second longer than Dean really intends it to to unstick his eyes from the rush of asphalt spreading out in front of them to meet his brother's eyes. He'd have something smartass to say about the searching worry in Sam's expression but it's not worth the effort, so he settles on a close-lipped grunt.

"You ok, man?" Sam asks with a slightly more urgent edge. Dean wants to laugh it off, but the sound doesn't come out, doesn't even try to build in his chest in the first place. Sam's lips tighten up and he gets that furrow in his brow that's so goddamn Sammy Dean can barely see straight.

He doesn't realize until Sam's reached across the middle space and puts a hand on the steering wheel that he hasn't looked back at the road in probably a while.

Annoyed, he bats Sam away, taking over the wheel again. The world wobbles like a bubble on the surface of disturbed water when he moves his head, but after a second it rights itself. Another pill would probably take care of it, but Sam always gives him that disapproving glare every time he takes one and he's not really up for an argument right now.

A shockingly cool palm settles over Dean's forehead, making him jump a couple of seconds too late. Sam's is still hovering there just off of the wheel like Dean can't be trusted with his own fucking car, which makes the hand checking him for fever Cas'. Dean would knock it away too, but that would require moving his head and that doesn't really seem like a good idea at the moment.

For a few blessed seconds there's silence and then Cas is huffing, way too close to Dean's ear, "What is this intended to tell me?"

This time Dean really does laugh, a short bark of a thing that leaves him feeling way too drained and - what the fuck? - dizzy.

Sam waves Cas off, instead leaning over and pursing his lips and oh shit-

Putting them against Dean's forehead. Oh. Nevermind.

It's the same way their mother used to check for temperature when Dean was little, the same method he always used on Sam, so it's not actually weird, it's just, you know, after the last time he got up close and personal with Sam's lips, he's just a little gun-shy.

"Jesus, Dean, you're burning up!" Sam scolds, mouth brushing over Dean's skin before he pulls away, leaving the spot tingling-cool from hot breath and a tiny trace of saliva. The world jiggles around like the inside of snowglobe and Sam's lunging for the wheel again.

Oh, fuck! Drive the car, drive the car.

"Pull over!" Sam shouts, kind of pointlessly since they're already partly on the shoulder to begin with, not much over left to pull. Dean eases onto the brake anyway because gravel's pinging against the undercarriage and he doesn't want to hurt his baby.

"I'm fine!" he snaps at his brother, letting the car coast to an easy stop. Sam shoves her into park without his permission an before Dean's got a chance to do anything about it, is already out of the car, circling around to the driver's side to fling Dean's door open and start trying to jerk him out.

"It's 30 degrees and you're sweating, that's not fine!"

Turns out Dean doesn't have much choice in the matter because a couple of rough tugs on his arm has him overbalancing, almost faceplanting into the asphalt except Sam's there to catch him. Fuck. Ok, maybe fine was an exaggeration.

It’s freezing out here, blank desolate grey as far as the eye can see with nothing to block the whipping wind. At least Sammy's warm as he forces Dean to his feet, bundling him in against his own body when those little muscle trembles Dean’s been fighting explode into full blown shivers.

There's something in him that wants it to be weird being this close to Sam after... after. But it's not. It's Sam. Sam urging him in on the passenger side of the car, Sam climbing in the other side with a couple of the scratchy wool army blankets they keep in the trunk to drape over Dean. Sam sharing this scared look with Cas that pushes all of Dean's big brother buttons so hard that he has to reach out and try to offer some comfort only to miss patting Sam on the shoulder and end up rubbing the headrest instead.

They all just stare at Dean's hand for a moment, basically letting it do its own thing since it doesn't seem to be listening to Dean right now. He hears himself say a weak, "Oh," and isn't even sure what that's supposed to mean before the whole works goes foggy.

***

Dean experiences the next who-knows-how-long mostly through the back of his eyelids with random punches of wakefulness that register like snapshots in his head.

Sam in the driver’s seat, Cas beside him, Dean flopped over every available inch of the back seat. Dean’s whole world packed into a dozen square feet.

A peeling, green motel door tilted sideways from the mismatch in height of Sam's body under one of his arms, Cas' under the other.

The thick cloy bursting across his tongue as Sam forces one of those little plastic measuring cups that comes with a bottle of cough syrup against his lips and orders him to swallow.

A popcorned ceiling in the blue-violet of deep night when his body shivers hard enough to wake him up. Cas tugging a heavy comforter up a little higher before snugging up against Dean's chest, the steady lull of heat at his back saying Sam's there too.

A trash can that's going to be unsalvageable as Dean pukes up the little bit of nothing in his stomach over the edge of the too-big bed - as far as he could make his body move. One hand soothing through his hair as another offers him a warm washcloth. He honestly doesn't bother to check who they belong to.

Warm afternoon light stabbing at his eyes, the lids of them feeling like they've been magnetized to one another, not really letting him open them. A familiar voice in his ear murmuring words he doesn't catch.

The rasp of cotton that feels like Brillo on his skin as it's pulled off, something cool cleaning away the damp stickiness that seems to be a part of his skin now.

When he finally wakes up well enough to feel like he's not about to collapse all over again, it’s to the soul-deep knowledge of what an overused dishrag feels like. The light in the room is the deep orange of approaching sunset, the shadows of spindly, nicked-finish furniture turning long over the striped walls. They do seem to have a knack for finding the weirdest motel rooms. Maybe that can be their fall-back career - write one of those guidebooks to the craziest P.O.S. by-the-hours in the country.

The sound of his own name, said low, more like 'hello', drags him out of his mental debate about whether it would be creepy to call it 'Winchester Bros. Travel Guides' now that Sam and Cas are together.

Cas is sitting on the other side of the room on a couch that blends so perfectly with the wallpaper one of them had to have been made to match the other. He smiles feebly but not forced, his whole expression soft around the edges like he's just as wrung-out as Dean is.

"Hey," is all Dean can come up with to say back, going for a smile of his own that might come out as more of a grimace. "Where's Sam?"

From this angle he can see most of the tiny bathroom through the open door and there's no sign of his brother. Considering that he's just spent at least a day and half, if not more, up-chucking, he wouldn't have guessed his stomach could bottom out any more than it already has, but there's Sam for you, always finding new levels of worry for Dean to live through.

"He went to get more medicine and food," Cas says casually, moving over to sit on the bed next to Dean. The really, really big bed. What the... is this a king? Why did they get a king room? Were there not any qu... Wait, what?

"Sam? Sam. Sam went shopping. _By himself._ What is wrong with you? What if he has another breakdown while he's out there alone? We have to go find him!"

Ok, it's officially pissing Dean off that all it takes to bounce him back into the pillows again - before he even gets a chance to put a foot on the floor - is a one-handed push from Cas. _Cas!_ The guy's still working on tying his own shoelaces!

"Sam will be fine," assures Cas, the hand he pushed Dean back with petting condescendingly over his shoulder now. "He's screwed up, not a six-year-old."

It's so clearly parroted straight from Sam's mouth Dean would almost swear he can hear Sam's voice in there too. All he can do for a second is stare.

Cas seems to take that as a prompt for more information since he follows it up with, "He's been doing very well the last few days. You would be proud of him."

And that's just stupid; Dean's never not been proud of Sam. True, there have been a couple of moments in the last few years where he wanted to royally kick his brother's ass, and, sure, starting the end of the world wasn't exactly an atta'boy moment but Sam had done more than anybody could ever have asked for when it came down to it and he's been walking around for months now with a century's worth of Hell-torment inside of his head and he's not a drooling deranged mess and... Damn this conversation would be so much easier to have if his head wasn't so damn fuzzy.

Any which way, it's a moot point because there's the sound of a key fitting into the door at that particular moment and then Sam's there, all relieved looking and smiling and _Sammy_. Dean sinks deeper into the bed in relief. He needs a nap.

"Hey, sleeping beauty," Sam says, setting down a couple of plastic shopping bags on the table. He digs into one and produces a blue Gatorade which he brings over to Dean, twisting the top open and everything like Dean's some kind of invalid. "'Bout time. I was starting to think we'd finally gotten rid of you."

The mattress dips as he takes a seat on the opposite side of Dean's body from Cas, both of them watching as Dean slowly sips at the drink. It washes away the 'something died here' taste in his mouth, but doesn't do a whole hell of a lot for the scary-ass way they're both just staring at him.

"Dude, I'm under the weather, 'm not dying!" he snaps finally when he starts to feel like his bones are tingling under the weight of their eyes.

If they keep it up with this 'talking with a look' thing they're both going to forget how to speak.

***

"I am done with the soup!" Dean says for what has got to be the twentieth time.

Cas is undeterred, spooning up another helping of chicken noodle even though Dean does not need to be fed like a fussy toddler. He can work a spoon, ok? Sure it had shaken a little bit and he'd gotten more of those couple of bites on his shirt than he did in his mouth, but it was working. "Food is essential to your life processes. You need to eat more."

It's only the fact that Dean's still mostly stuck in the bed - with a few intrepid treks to the bathroom or the couch which inevitably end with him napping for the next several hours; being sick sucks out loud - that keeps him from turning the whole bowl over in Cas' lap. As much fun as it's _not_ to be spoonfed Campbell’s by his brother's butt-buddy, living in a puddle of it would probably be even less of a party.

"Oh look who's talking," he bites out instead. Cas uses the opportunity to shove the spoon into Dean's mouth, sneaky bastard.

Before Cas has a chance to come back with anything about his daily food intake, he's cut off by Sam's voice calling out from the bathroom. "Boys, don't make me get my belt!"

It's so spot on it stops Dean cold, his body working on autopilot so that he ends up swallowing the damn soup anyway. He can't remember a time when their father ever actually took a belt to either of them, but that was always the threat and it always worked, even after Sam had gotten into his contrary high school phase.

His brother pokes his head out of the bathroom door and grins, dimples all over the place like a grenade full of happy.

"Dude,” Dean says back warily, “that was eerie." Cas shoves another spoonful of soup into his mouth. Damnit.

Sam saunters out of the bathroom – somewhere in the United States there has to be a motel with towels that cover enough of Sam not to get him charged with public indecency – just in time to rescue the soup from being a casualty of war anyway as Dean, somewhat ineffectually, shoves at Cas in retaliation and Cas threateningly wields the spoon at him.

For just a second Sam’s hand rests on Cas’ shoulder as he saves the bowl, settling it aside on the nightstand. It’s not a sexy touch, there’s nothing particularly special about it – just Sam’s hand, big and still a little damp, resting casually on Cas’ shoulder. Sam’s touched a thousand people like that, witnesses and people he’s called friends, Bobby, Dean. It doesn’t mean anything except for how it does, because Dean’s touched people like that too, people like Lisa, and right then it crystalizes. Sam and Cas. Not just an idea, not just messing around, not some weird messed-up thing like the whole rest of their lives. Sam’s always needed someone in his life to hold onto and Dean’s tried, but there are things that even for their fucked-sideways relationship it would be too much for him to allow himself to be. And Cas will never be able to have anyone but them – not with what he’s been, what he is. It makes sense. They make sense.

Obviously whatever Dean’s got isn’t too happy about the soup either because it suddenly feels like it’s going to make a reappearance.

***

Dean wakes up in the dark, adrenaline an electric shock through his veins. For a second he can’t figure out what woke him, then he hears, too close, a hissed “Sam!”

Their shapes are nothing but a darker splotch of night, a slow moving bulk that cranks the heat up in Dean’s body by dozens of degrees like he’s riding the fever again. He’s been feeling better for the last couple of days, not quite up to snuff, immune system shot to hell by the booze and the pills, the lack of sleep and the spinning in circles inside his own head and his goddamn motherfucking body just not being as young as it used to be, but just now he feels like he’s back in the throes of the virus – shaky and short of breath and overwhelmed, too fuzzy-headed to think straight.

He can hear them breathing, tearing off jagged scraps of air to mix with soft wet sounds that Dean’s had way too much experience not to recognize as the noise of mouths on flesh. Now that he’s awake enough to notice, the gentle rock of the mattress moving beneath him is obvious too, matching up perfectly with the shift of that dark shape on the other side of the bed, barely a foot away. Christ, they’re fucking. They’re fucking with him right here in the same bed like he’s not going to notice.

He’d say God help him, but they crossed that option off the list a long time ago and even if they hadn’t he sort of doubts that getting hard over the sound of his baby brother dicking a former angel is the kind of problem God would want to get his hands dirty with.

Cas bites out another round of Sam’s name, tight and urgent but not quite right either. Even less right when he follows it with, “Please, I can’t. Sam, please.”

The motion doesn’t stop. Sam makes this snarly growl of a noise – Dean knows it’s Sam because he’s been living with that sound for weeks and weeks and weeks – that’s way too familiar and that’s when it clicks.

“Sam! Woah, stop! Sam, let him go!” He gives his own shot at the Dad voice as he swipes blindly through the blackness for his brother. Sam’s muscles tense under his hand when he gets a decent grip at the sharp cut of one hip, a wordless growl muffled, Dean’s guessing by the vague outlines he can make out, into Cas’ neck.

Dean’s not up to his full strength yet and Sam’s got a lot more of it than he usually lets on so he doesn’t go far when Dean yanks at him, even with Cas’ pushing from the other side. Sam thrashes when Dean gets one arm curled around him, caught between his brother’s chest and Cas’, but seems to settle a little bit when Dean presses up against his back. Sam’s grinding his hips unevenly, all instinct and need, and it’s making it all but impossible for Dean to ignore his own hard-on brushing against Sam’s ass occasionally. At least like this he can tell that Sam’s still got his boxers on.

“Cas, you ok?” he grunts, trying to get his animal of a brother to back the fuck off. It’s like putting a hell hound on a leash.

“He just- I can’t- It’s too much. Dean, please.” He sounds helpless, closer to petrified than Dean’s ever heard him, even when he was facing down oblivion and it turns the dial up on Dean’s own panic a little.

If pushed, he’s going to say that’s why he ends up shoving the hand he’s got on Sam’s hip further in to cup over his cock, wedged hot and hard against Cas’. But honestly, he’d just rather not think about it.

Sam bucks into it reflexively, this weird, mildly familiar gurgle coming out of him that’s a tiny bit like a purr. He moves with it, albeit slightly reluctantly, when Dean uses that hand to urge him slowly away from Cas, who has the good sense to scramble out of the way onto the floor the second he has a chance. Dean honestly hasn't got an ever-loving fuck of a clue what's going on but everything feels slightly less dire now. Which is probably a tragic statement about Dean's life as a whole considering he's currently halfway to giving his little brother a handjob.

Taking his hand back doesn't seem to be a particularly better option, though, since the second he lets up on the pressure Sam makes a displeased grunt and latches onto his wrist, holding him in place. It's pretty much bad news all the way around because now Sam's kneeling back so they're spine to chest, trapping Dean, hips still gyrating like a toy top and after a couple of months of barely an opportunity to rub one out, let alone get any - and a couple of months before that where he had too much on his plate to even consider it - Dean's body is officially ignoring his brain's signals that humping Sam's ass is not a reasonable substitute for a date.

"Cas!" he gasps, desperate - Sammy gives one hell of a lap dance. But Cas is still on the floor, his knees tucked in close just like when he was getting boners out of the blue those first few weeks and Dean suddenly has to wonder if maybe he's misread what level Cas and Sam are at. Because Cas had definitely been hard, he'd felt it when his hand had been sandwiched between them, the phantom heat of it still stark and surreal as the iron-hard burn of Sam's cock in his palm, but with the way he's acting, maybe he hasn't really figured out what his dick's for after all. And maybe Sam's not quite as big of a molester as Dean's been giving his flack for.

Then again, maybe this isn't the time to be dealing with those particular issues because Sam is starting to make harsh, driven sounds and the buck of his hips is getting rougher. He's sweating slightly - seems to have skipped right over the twitchy phase and who knows what that means, but obviously he'd been going at Cas for a little longer than Dean realized to be so worked up - a heavy, familiar scent that Dean would give just about anything not to respond to right now. His body is warm, always a damn furnace, and his manic heartbeat his right there under the hand Dean doesn't remember splaying across his chest.

And it's good.

It's so goddamn good Dean might have just finally crossed that border into truly, deeply batshit insane because as much as he should _want_ to stop it, he doesn't. Doesn't when Sam clutches uncoordinatedly at his hand, just splays his fingers and rubs his thumb over the damp spot of fabric at the head of Sam’s dick. Doesn't when Sam does this impossibly slow, filthy grind that rubs his cock just right through two thin layers of cotton, just presses his hips up into it and tries to remember to breathe. Doesn't when Sam tips his head and mouths sloppily over Dean's temple and cheek and the corner of his lips, just turns his head and slides his mouth against Sam's in a rough parody of a kiss. Doesn't, doesn't, doesn't, and then it stops mattering because Sam goes rigid against him and the thin cloth under his hand soaks though.

There's some special kind of wrong to it that feeling Sam lose it like that, right there with his own hand, grabs him by the balls and wrenches the orgasm out of him by force, swept away in it like a tidal wave. His own come pumps out slick into the confines of his briefs, sludgy and sick and he can't even bring himself to care. Can't even be bothered to think about anything but the white rush of ecstasy rubbing the wrong way along the inside of his veins.

It's much, much too long after that - once Dean's brain has regrown inside his skull like that chia pet Sam had in the second grade, all fluffy and maybe not entirely made of real stuff - that he tunes back in to the wavering draws of air he can here from beside the bed. Cas.

Hot lead guilt plummets into his stomach and he's not honestly sure whether it's because he just jerked off his baby brother and got off on it, or because he did it in front of his brother's boyfriend, who is, by the way, his own best not-related-to friend. Christ, there's so much wrong there that somebody's going to have to come up with a new definition.

Sam, thankfully, is much calmer having gotten his rocks off and seems perfectly content to go with it when Dean forces his weak, shaky muscles to lower them both to the bed. He hangs on to Dean's hand, not letting him go far when he tries to get up and check on Cas, but it's still enough leeway to get one foot on the ground next to the bed and take a hazy, through-the-dark look at his friend.

Cas has his face buried in the dip of his knees, but the rough jags of his audible breathing and the slightly darker squiggles running down his calves from the places his fingers have dug in against the meat don't leave much of a question about how he's doing.

Helpless is one of those feelings Dean keeps expecting he's going to get used to, all things considered, but it just never gets any better.

"Cas, I didn't mean t-"

"I am n-" he breaks off to cough wetly, tear off another wispy scrap of air like strands of sugar off of a roll of cotton candy, "I am not angry with you, Dean. I just need to be alone, please."

Whatever stark-raving part of Dean's brain that took over in the last twenty minutes wants to laugh - when's the last time any of them was actually alone? - but he has a feeling it would come out all wheezy and unhinged, so he swallows it back and just nods instead.

Allowing himself to be pulled back into Sam's arms - and man could he have done without that squishy-cool reminder that they both just came in their shorts like kids - seems like an extra dash of betrayal somehow, but he hasn't really got any idea what else to do. Sam hums and snuffles at the back of his neck and promptly crashes with one arm and leg thrown across Dean’s body.

He'd have thought there was no way he'd get another wink of sleep, but his crap-ass immune system is still taking the last few weeks out on him and he's always been more or less useless after he gets off anyway. The shift as Cas crawls back into bed - an hour? two? - later wakes him, though, the soft warmth of his body sliding up close to Dean, tucking himself in under Sam's arm as well. He hides his face in the dark hollow of Dean's neck without a word and Dean does the only thing he can do, has ever done. He holds on.

***

A long slice of sunlight molds itself to the bare skin of Sam’s back, the rumpled covers, curving and dipping like a roller coaster down to carpet that had ‘seen better days’ a few decades back. Sometimes he wonders if they’re really in a new place, if his whole life isn’t just a treadmill of the same motels over and over with a slap-dash wallpaper job and a few kitschy touches. For all he knows he’s stood in this very room before and has just blotted it out like so many others, a watercolor wash of cheap rentals painted across the choppy timeline of his life.

He’s lived this moment a hundred different times, and yet it’s also brand new and terrifying, because it’s not just Sam making his sleepy, contented noise into a threadbare pillow and Dean swallowing back a dry lump of untoasted strawberry Pop Tart. It’s Dean stalling for time as he tries to find words that nobody should ever have to say – some way to explain to an angel turned human that giving your brother a reach around when he’s out of his mind from post-hell trauma is not the same thing as said brother cheating on him. It’s Dean watching as Cas hovers awkwardly by the bed like he just can’t force himself to be far from Sam even though, given half a chance, Dean’s fairly certain Sam would have raped Cas last night and he’s almost positive that Cas knows it too. It’s Dean trying to figure out what the fuck is going on between those two and what he can – should – do about it.

It’s 7:23 in the morning and it’s going to be a very long day.

Crafting delicately persuasive arguments has always been more Sam’s department and this isn’t the first time Dean’s regretted not picking up more of that particular skill, but it may be the time that he means it the most. He’s opened his mouth more times than he can count only to find nothing at all rolling off of his tongue. Because seriously, what is there to say? _I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just doing what I had to do. Just ignore the part where I came harder than I have in a fucking year; it’s working just swell for me._

What he ends up with is, “Cas,” hanging on the air like a middle-aged balloon, expanding as if it’s feeding on the never-ending amounts of awkward packed into every dust-bunnied corner.

Blue eyes tear themselves off of Sam like stubborn duct tape. Despite his steady improvement with the range of expressions concept, when he’s guarded, figuring out Cas is as easy as reading the newspaper through a brick wall. And damn but he’s guarded now. Because this thing needed an extra layer of what the fuck melted on top.

He has to get that Dean was just trying to help him – they spent half the night fucking cuddling, for God’s sake, he cannot be flipping out now, he is not allowed!

“It wasn’t cheating!” he hisses, voice kept low since waking Sam one second before absolutely necessary is way down at the bottom of Dean’s to do list.

Cas’ head cocks to the side owlishly, this funny little quirk he hasn’t yet managed to train himself out of. A part of Dean hopes he never does.

“Of course,” he agrees as if Dean asked for confirmation that the sky is blue. “I told you I wasn’t angry with you, Dean.”

“He couldn’t control it,” he argues anyway, because if he’s not taking the heat for this, it sure as hell shouldn’t end up on Sam.

“I am aware. I am not upset with either of you. Who could possibly expect monogamy from you or Sam?”

The words hit Dean where he lives, not the first time he’s heard them but the first it’s ever been laid out quite so baldly, and he’s speaking before he’s thinking. “Hey! I was totally faithful to Lisa and Sam’s the poster boy for one-woman kind of guy.” Which, ok, maybe now that’s more one-woman-or-man-as-the-case-may-be-unless-in-a-trauma-induced-stupor kind of guy but still, a point is a point. Sam snuffles discontentedly into his pillow, dust motes flying up in the sunlight in the wake of his breath.

“Dean,” Cas says in that way he has that makes it sound like a statement, “You’re Sam’s, he is yours. What you do with your bodies is incidental to that. I have no reservations about any of it.”

There’s not actually anything in what Cas just unleashed on him that Dean’s willing to touch with a ten foot pole. Instead he settles on, “Well then what’s your problem?”

“I am…” Cas pauses, swallows, the bob of his adam’s apple thrown into sharp relief by the warped light, “uncomfortable with sexual release. It’s very… I don’t feel as if I can contain it.”

The image that’s been seared onto the underside of Dean’s brain flashes filament-bright in front of his eyes. Cas glowing at the heart of the gaping chasm that formed the doorway into purgatory, skin sizzling and searing, distending in unnatural ways from the power trapped inside of his body.

Yeah, Dean can see why an orgasm might be a problem for him.

“It won’t hurt you." God, he's suddenly right back at fifteen, trying to give Sam 'The Talk' around his 842 incessant questions. "It’s good. It’s the best feeling in the world.”

Again, not entirely true. Dean can think of plenty of feelings that are better, but they all tend to be embarrassingly tied to chick-flick moments or else depressing reminders of how many times they have all lost each other only to end up right back together again. For now he’s just going to stick with ‘the best feeling in the world’.

“I am aware. Sam has explained it a number of times," says Cas. His eyes are back on Sam, watching the slow rise-fall of his chest as he works his way through that restless phase on his way to waking up naturally.

“So you two haven’t…”

“No.”

"Ever?"

"No."

“Oh.” This is where Dean should shut up, because he does not want the details. Really doesn’t. “Do you want to?”

Cas’ mouth tightens up at the edges. “Very much. I think.”

“You know you don’t have to. I mean, he’ll be ok if-“

“I know. I want him. I just can’t seem to react appropriately in the moment. Being human is extremely frustrating.”

“Welcome to the club, man.” Dean finds his hand on Cas' shoulder before he's even considered it - the kind of natural touch he's always been prone to throwing around with the people he's close to.

Before Cas and Sam started up their thing Dean wouldn't have thought twice about it. Before last night it wouldn't have even occurred to him that it might be awkward. But now two of his fingers are resting on this slip of hot skin stretched thin over bone where the wide neck of Cas' shirt has listed toward the curve of his shoulder, exposing his collarbone and it all seems really personal all of a sudden. Might be because the only way his shirt would fit like that is if it was actually Sam's.

Sam, who molested both of them last night - assuming that Dean doing everything to him counted as being molested instead of a molstee. Sam, who was a bag full of loose screws before he got stuck in the cage. Who's probably never going to be truly whole again. Who they've both nearly torn the world apart over on more than one occasion. Sam.

“You love him,” comes out of Dean's mouth - less of an accusation than he'd have expected, more awe in it than he'd care to admit.

“Of course." Again, Cas is agreeing like it's nothing and it makes this strange wriggling thing inside Dean's chest catch fire, makes him want to grab Cas by his stupid dainty shoulders and shake him until he gets that this is a big deal, that you don't just get to toss shit like that out on the table like it's natural. It's not supposed to be that easy. "I love you too.”

Just like that, the sensation in Dean's chest lays down and dies. Possibly his heart along with it.

He doesn’t know what to do with it beyond the instinctual drive to get away, very very far away. But he can't do that now any more than he could the night he first walked in on them. A hundred nights before in a hundred different places. He was born without whatever it would take to walk away from Sam and any chance he had of turning his back on Cas burnt away with all those Purgatory souls.

So he's not leaving, but how does he stay? As if last night wasn't bad enough - like he can just wave the magic 'you were crazy' wand and make it ok that he did _that_ to his brother - there's this, this... four letter word hanging over his head from the guy who's probably at least half the reason Sam's still upright most days.

Freaky-perceptive as always, Cas says, “You shouldn’t feel guilty, Dean. Sam wouldn’t have objected if he had been able to.”

“He’s my brother,” is all the answer Dean has. All the answer he should _need_ to have, because damnit, it's a very good argument.

“Yes." Being agreed with has never been this fucking annoying.

“And you don’t do that kind of stuff with your brother!" he snaps, trying to funnel all of his wannabe-yell energy into a undertone instead, "It’s _incest_.”

“Neither of you could bear a child from the union.”

“That still doesn’t make it ok!”

“Why?” Cas asks guilelessly. Like he legitimately doesn't see the fucking issue here.

“ _Because!_ You were an angel, man. You can’t seriously tell me that’s not a problem for you.” Dean can't handle this right now. Probably not ever, but especially not right now. He's still weak from that stupid virus, the memory of Sam's body against him, hot and hard and... fuck. Just no. He just doesn't fit right in his place in the world right now and he definitely doesn't have the self-possession to have _this_ freaking conversation which shouldn't even need to _be_ a conversation. With _his brother's boyfriend_ or whatever the fuck!

“It wouldn’t be a matter of coercion," says Cas, matter-of-factly, "He has wanted you for most of his life.”

So, clearly Dean was wrong earlier when he thought his heart had given out because it's suddenly kicked into overdrive.

“No. He. Has. Not," is deathly quiet - not because he's trying to keep it down anymore so much as he can't seem to catch his breath. Every pulse in his veins hammers out 'no, no, no, no'. Or maybe that's 'Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam'. Whichever it is doesn't matter, he just needs it to shut up, just needs some fucking room to think before he has an aneurism. "His brain is scrambled right now, he can’t help what he thinks. And- and even if he has, he’s still _my brother_!”

"De?" Sam grumbles into the pillow. Every hair on Dean's body stands on end.

For a minute it's like the clock stopped and Sam's the only thing in the universe left moving. Groggily, he rolls over onto his back, warm and sleepy-looking in the splash of sunlight. The moment that he starts to figure out something's up is obvious, eyes coming open, unglazed and way too sharp for so soon after waking up, sliding over to where Dean and Cas are just standing there, staring at the bed. All stealthy and inconspicuous-like.

The heavy click of Sam's throat working on a dry swallow breaks the tense silence before he finally asks, “What did I do?”

Before he's even managed to sit up all the way, Cas is easing himself down on the bed, “Nothing irredeemable.”

Sam's laugh comes out brittle. “You’re a regular font of reassurance, you know that?" Still, his hand meets Cas' across the bed. "Did I…”

It doesn’t take the glance he shoots down at the sheets pooled around his hips to guess what he means. He’s bound to be feeling that same scratchy pull that Dean woke up with his underwear full of and there’s not a lot of options for someone their age on how it got there.

Dean’d known it was coming, inevitable, but seeing that look on Sam’s face like he wishes he was dead still hits harder than a Mac truck.

“No,” Cas shakes his head, “Dean.”

Hypnotic pull, Sam’s eyes fly up to catch Dean’s, hold them even when he’s rather look at absolutely anything else in the world. Confusion sits there staring at him until realization catches up with it, a reminder Dean doesn’t need of what it feels like right before he pukes his guts up.

“Oh,” is all Sam says, all the eloquence of somebody who just got brained by a two-by-four. Dean could have done without it all the same.

“I gonna…” _curl up under the sink and die,_ Dean thinks. What he finally comes up with is, “Shower.”

He almost makes good on his daring escapes, but when has Sam ever let anything go that easy, especially something Dean didn’t want to discuss?

“Dean,” he says, solemn and heartfelt enough that it makes Dean want to squirm. Forces him to turn around on the spot. “Thanks.”

A deep breath sadly does not provide Dean with anything approximating a response for that. After a too long moment of silence, he shrugs, “Gotta do what you gotta do, right?”

Sam’s expression spasms into something that might have been a smile before it got mugged and beaten on the way to his face. “Right.”

Cas gives Dean a look too, and he’s just as lost on what to do with that one – caught somewhere between accustomed disappointment and a command – as Sam’s. A shower’s probably not going to fix any of that, but at least it will get him out of the room. And then maybe while Sam’s taking his turn Dean can slip out and go… anywhere but here.

***

The soft snik of their lips parting drowns out everything else – the hum of the over-worked heater in the corner, the tinny noise of the _MASH_ rerun on TV, the blood swirling in Dean’s skull. Outside, snow is coming down in fat white flurries and Dean tries to focus on imagining the whispered pat-pat-pat of it meeting the ground but it just ends up morphing into that hushed gasp that Cas makes every now and again that Dean is not dying to know the cause of.

They’ve been doing this for the last couple of days.

Even after what happened, Sam had insisted on sticking around town for a while longer for Dean to rest up. He’s pretty sure he’s over the worst of whatever it was – a little weak maybe, but still perfectly functional – but Sammy had flat out refused to leave and Cas, naturally, had sided with him. He’s also pretty sure that they’ve hidden the Impala’s keys somewhere because he cannot for the life of him figure out where they are.

None of which really explains why the two of them have suddenly decided that making out with Dean _right there_ is an acceptable lazy day activity.

For all that Cas is, evidently freaked out about actually coming, he seems to be a big fan of kisses – slow, deep, languid ones that break off into breathy sounds and barely there moans.

Dean would say something about it except he can’t seem to figure out what. They’ve never had a lot to do with privacy, he and Sam, and sure, he’s put Sam through the same thing more than once; sneaking a girl in for a little something-something knowing that his brother was just one bed away, overhearing. It’s a by-product of the way they grew up, the kind of life they’ve always lived, but this is different. It’s not just some random chick he’s not even going to remember in the middle of the night. This is _Cas_. Cas, the former angel, two feet across the bed. Right the fuck in front of him. And when the hell had that become hot?

The thing is, none of it bothers him nearly as much as it should, or at least not in the ways it should. He’s definitely bothered, but not in the snap at them to knock it off way. More like the sneak a peek while he rubs his dick through his shorts kind of way. And that’s just one of far too many things about himself he never needed to know.

If he’s being honest – which he tries to avoid most of the time out of pure self-preservation – this isn’t something brand new brought on by touching his brother or finding out that Cas is maybe in love with him or that they both would probably be more than a little okay with the idea of him rubbing one out watching them together. Knowing what it feels like when Sam comes in his hand or how Cas’ body curls into his in the middle of the night just makes the hundreds of tiny bitten off thoughts he’s had over the years float to the surface and demand a place in the spotlight.

It doesn’t help that he has a strong suspicion that they both know all of this too. The making out would be enough of a tip off, really, even if it wasn’t for the little looks and touches. He and Sam have never really had the kind of boundaries that would actually qualify under normal definitions so it’s not entirely shocking that Cas wouldn’t have much of a concept of them either, but there’s boundaries and then there’s _boundaries_.

It’s never been out of the norm for them to be in the bathroom while the other is showering or to sit-stand-lean a little closer than strictly necessary. He can’t even say that he’s never seen Sam hard before or heard what he sounds like trying to get off all quiet and sneaky under the covers. It’s another thing altogether though to have Cas’ body butted up against him in a long hot line when there’s veritable acres of free space on the couch or Sam’s hand resting casually on his thigh like it belongs there. Or like right now, as the two of them trade these lazy, spit-sticky kisses that Dean realizes suddenly he has been watching for way too long, TV forgotten in the background, and he’s got two of Cas’ fingers twisted up with his own on the mattress between them. This simple point of contact that feels painfully intimate considering what else Cas is up to at the moment.

No effort at all and he could pull away; it wouldn’t even seem like a rejection, just a small move of his hand. But he doesn’t, hasn’t, won’t. Because as much as it makes his nerves jitter and his stomach twist itself into a pretzel, there’s something about it that settles him too.

And really, between the guns and the knives and the salt lines, Dean’s always had some weird associations with comfort, so maybe it’s not so surprising that even a connection this jacked grounds him. Maybe after a lifetime of this obsessive need to be all up in Sam’s space, to know and feel and understand everything about the strangeness that is Cas, maybe this is the most natural thing in the world for him to enjoy.

Still doesn’t keep that fact from giving him the heebie-jeebies.

***

It must say a thousand different fucked-up things about him that the first time Dean feels like the world has started spinning again is on a salt and burn. Motels generally aren’t bad about picking up spirits – usually a person has to have some kind of connection to a place to haunt it and the average person just doesn’t spend that much time in motels. An old homeless guy who froze to death out back of The Shangri-La in Benton, Pennsylvania – Dean started to pay a little more attention to road signs since his little foray into germ warfare - seemed to be pretty attached to the place, though. Retired or not, they couldn’t very well just leave it when people were getting attacked three doors down from them.

Whoever thought it would be nice to bury the old guy’s watch on the property as a kind of memorial probably had the best intentions but Dean doesn’t feel very bad about digging it up again and setting it ablaze amidst the freeze-hardened snow. The whole thing goes down smooth as melted butter; a practiced ease he can’t really account for since they suddenly have a new member on the team they’ve spent their whole lives building.

They stand huddled around the miniature campfire watching cheap black plastic melt around the edges well after the spirit has roared into the great beyond, just the three of them in flickering firelight and the moon’s reflection thrown up off of the snow. Dean just can’t stop himself from grinning.

Sometimes, all evidence to the contrary, the universe is actually a decent place, so now they’ve got a free motel room for a week, a case of beer the owner had stashed back in the storeroom and the phone number of the girl who works the front desk in the evenings. She smiles when she hands it over, a nervous, hungry glance split three ways between them even though it’s Dean’s palm her fingertips are caressing. They’re three grown men with a king-bed room, people are bound to draw the obvious, if mostly wrong, conclusion. She’s pretty enough and obviously willing and Dean knows before he politely tucks the slip of paper in his pocket that none of them is going to use it. He doesn’t even feel the urge.

The beers go down smooth though, back in the dry heat of the room. Sam’s obviously high on the whole night – still kept it together even after the spirit slammed him up against a wall and tried to strangle him; one day Dean’s going to get a ghost pinned down long enough to ask what the deal is with his brother’s neck – and it isn’t until right then that Dean realizes how much Sam was worried about this. After half a lifetime of trying to climb his way out of the hunting life, it had never really occurred to him that Sammy would miss it.

It used to be like this, back when Dad first started dragging Sam out on hunts with them, all bitchy and against his will up until they actually bagged whatever they were gunning for and that thrill of accomplishment took over. Now it’s Cas who’s got that look smeared all over his face, a little dopey with a couple of brews to ease the way, just flat out glowing under that joy of having worked out a hunt – no powers or divine intervention, just his mind and his own two hands. Dean’s pretty sure he’s beaming with pride himself.

The exact procession from point A to point B is lost on Dean because somehow he goes from sitting there with his hand firm on Cas’ shoulder telling him he did a good job to balancing on two chair legs as Cas shoves up against him too hard and jams Dean’s lips up against his teeth, his mouth hot and unyielding. Cas’ lips are a little chapped from the cold, catching at the places where Dean’s are too, until it turns wet. His tongue slides into Dean’s mouth and curls in this way that hits Dean right between the eyes because he knows that, deep down in his bones like it was crafted out of his marrow. Remembers that.

That’s Sam. Cas kisses like Sam. Because Sam’s the one who taught him.

Dean has just enough time to gasp in a breath before he’s floored by the thought. Literally, staring up at the ceiling, wind knocked out of him by the trip down, floored.

Alright, that might have had something to do with being balanced on two chair legs, too.

Sam cackles like it’s the funniest damn thing he’s ever seen.

It leaves him wide open so that the balled up sock Dean finds on the floor – who even knows which one of them it might belong to anymore – smacks him in the face. Now it’s Dean’s turn to cackle.

“Jerk,” Sam gripes through a smile as he grabs at Dean’s forearm to pull him up. Cas has him on the other side and between the two of them, he’s standing again almost before he has a chance to grunt back, “Bitch.”

Back on his feet, he finds himself sandwiched between the two of them and for a moment everything is just still. See, Cas just kissed him, in front of Sam, no less, and there are a lot of things that aren’t being said here – should never be said because they shouldn’t even be felt in the first place. It ought to be awkward as fuck with the two of them there, just looking at him and each other and then back to him, but it’s not. Instead it’s comfortable; warm and easy in this way that’s all too rare nowadays – probably always was, he just never felt it as acutely as he has these past few months.

It makes it unconscionably easy just to duck his head and press his lips back up against Cas’, a much softer touch than the first that raises the hairs on Cas’ arm under his grip. The next is just as gentle, and the one after, and the one after in a long string Dean quickly loses count of.

He doesn’t remember Sam’s right there with him until his brother’s hand brushes his own on the curve of Cas’ neck. The look in Sam’s eyes is dark and uncertain and hungry enough that it gives Dean’s stomach a seizure. For just a second Sam hesitates, just long enough that Dean’s sure this is going to fuck them all permanently, and then he’s leaning in, breath warm and beer-bitter on Dean’s lips before he turns at the last second and slides his tongue into Cas’ mouth instead.

The first time he watched them, Dean thought that they looked gorgeous and obscene this way and the times after haven’t done anything to dispel that perverse sense of wonder. Those were nothing compared to the view from the floor seats.

Lights on, close up, he can see the shine from the inside of their lips, the pink flash as the angle slip-slides, the shadowed hollow of Sam’s cheek as he sucks on Cas’ tongue. Hell he can smell them, smoke and gasoline and beer and sweat. Home.

God. Fuck. He’s so fucked he can’t even take it, has to bury his face against Cas’ jaw to lick at the taste of his skin.

Cas’ breath hitches and he makes this noise into Sam’s mouth that isn’t really words but comes out as ‘yes, please’ anyway. In all this time, Dean’s heard it before – has it playing on a loop in the back of his head for hours at a time some days - but he’s never _felt_ it before, the vibration under his lips, the way Cas goes pliant under his hands. Has never realized until right this second the jolt that Sam has been riding all this time, every time. In all of Dean’s experience – and he’s had plenty, if not so much in the recent past – he’s never had anyone just give it up like Cas is, doesn’t even know if a regular person would be able to. Sam deserves some kind of friggin’ award for not pinning Cas down and nailing him to the mattress long before now.

It feels like they’re skipping a step or ten – the one where he says ‘no, they can’t do this, they’re family’, not the least of which. It's his brother and his angel - whatever else Cas may be now, powers or no, he'll always be an angel in the same way Sam and Dean will always be hunters - and this is the ultimate act of defilement, a six-pack of sin all rolled into Sam's heat bleeding through his shirt and Cas' taste bright on his tongue. But it's his _brother_ and his _angel_ and now that he's here, he's having trouble remembering why he ever thought that wasn't enough reason in and of itself.

He doesn’t even know how long it’s been since he was touched like this, like a person instead of some sort of anchor or aid, like a creature with feelings and wants and fuck, obviously all that time has turned him into a chick. But he’s got Sam’s hands on him there and Cas’ over there and fuck it, he’ll deal with the rest of the bullshit later.

At some point the details go indistinct, which seems like a crime but is true nonetheless. Too many hands moving around on too many bodies to keep track of who does what and when. They wind up on the bed, which is the important part when it comes right down to it, Dean's shirt somewhere else entirely, winked out of existence for all he knows and his jeans hung lopsided on his hips. Cas is down to white briefs - between the three of them they've got the entire underwear preference spectrum covered - and a bundle of brown fabric that Dean can only assume was his shirt wound around his bicep where someone must have gotten distracted before tugging it all the way off. Sam's lost one layer all over, blue plaid boxers and a grey tee, everything else abandoned in the three and a half feet they traveled to get here.

They probably look ridiculous but Dean must need to get his meter checked because the only reading he's getting is hot. So hot he's shaking for it, worse than he did in eighth grade when he peeled Angela Lawrence out of her panties for the first time, worse than he ever has without a family member bleeding out on the ground.

The thought gets knocked out of his head and straight out of the park by Sam's fingers circling his wrist, forcing him to crawl forward on his knees until he's on the other side of Cas' body, all tiny and lithe and panting between their mutual bulk. His hand gets planted against Cas' chest, squeezed in under Sam's because just Dean's spanning most of the width of him didn't seem intimidating enough.

A livid pink flush has Cas painted from hairline to ribcage, just making that can't-be-real blue of his eyes even more shocking. Under his palm, Dean can feel the flutter of Cas' heart, surreally _real_ and hummingbird fast.

Cas is right on the edge of freaking out, 'help' so obvious it's almost painful written in the widening of his eyes, and it's throwing Dean off - part that ingrained need to comfort and care for and protect and part this dirty, wild urge to take it all apart and rub himself up against the broken insides of Cas' control so his mark will always be there.

And then Sam - of course he does, he's fucking _Sam_ \- goes and talks.

"It's ok, baby." For a crazy, inside out second, Dean's not even sure which one of them he's talking to. "We're gonna take care of you. Me and Dean. He's taken care of me my whole life, you remember? You remember _watching_?"

There's a corkscrew twist to the way he says it like an inside joke that's not a joke. Like Cas had been peeping in on them doing something filthy all that time when Dean knows it's not true, that they never went anywhere near each other with this kind of intent before. Cas' breath snags anyway and the bulge in his briefs jerks, this blushy spot forming at the head where the fabric is going translucent-wet. Dean's organs, every single one, give a swift, hot lurch.

Sam leans in until his lips brush Cas' flushed cheek. Cas turns into it, mouth open and infantile, only to get taunted by nipping almost-kisses Who'd have thought Sammy would be such a fucking cocktease?

"And now we're gonna take care of you too," he murmurs, sultry in a way that makes Dean think of that summer they spent in the deep south, sticky with sweat and too hot to move all the damn time, "all you have to do is watch."

Headrush sudden, that feeling like he missed something or they missed something or a whole hell of a lot of somethings finally kicks in. Straight from weird sexual tension to making out to dude-orgy without any of the stepping stones that seem like they seriously belong in between. He can't figure out why that shocks him – Sam’s always had a skydiving mentality with the shit he does; once he’s jumped nothing’s going to turn him around until he hits ground. Cas should probably have better judgment than that considering he’s the oldest guy in the room by a couple of millennia but he’s also never gotten off before, so what the hell does he know? And then there’s Dean who’s stuck here trying to come up with one single thing he can remember how to do with his stupid fucking hands now that Sam's are abandoning him to trace a dizzy path down Cas' stomach.

"Sam," Cas gasps, but he's staring at Dean, broken wide open like a snail out of its shell, all tender and vulnerable on the inside. Scared. God, he looks scared and, like, _earnest_. Trying so hard to do it right and get it right and _be_ right. Just like he has every day since the moment he stepped into Dean’s life out of the dark. And that, at least, Dean knows.

“Hey.” His palm fits seamlessly against Cas’ jaw. Sky-bright eyes flutter at him, lose a little ground to the outward slip of pupil. “We’re ok.”

Another fall of eyelashes and a puff of breath against the thumb he has tracing Cas’ lip says something more is going on and he can’t stop himself from shooting a glance down the taut line of Cas’ body. He’s not even close to prepared for the sight of Sam’s swollen lips rich-red against white cotton, licking slow, open mouthed kisses over the shape of Cas’ dick.

Sam’s looking right back at him, dragging out the next pull of his lips into approximately four years of fucked-up hot. There’s an upward twitch to the corner of his lips when he licks them wet again but it’s nothing compared to the rise of his eyebrow like… like he thinks he’s winning. Like he thinks he’s beating Dean at the 'seduce Cas' game and he is _so_ not winning. Seduction is what Dean does. If there was a league, Dean would have gone pro. He would have been the MVP. They'd have given him trophies and huge-ass rings and named stadiums after him. He can seduce the ever loving fuck out of somebody is what he’s saying and he can sure as shit outdo Sammy.

Considering that Cas is more than a little bit virginal, it might be unfair of them to be teaming up on him like this, but hey, them's the breaks when you decide to mix sex with sibling rivalry. Fuck, ok, again probably better not to think about the whole sibling bit right now. That's a panic attack to save for some time when he's not busy licking Cas' mouth open.

Cas doesn't hesitate to give in to the rasp of Dean's tongue, opens wide and easy, shameless in a way that could only come from not understanding why he should be ashamed in the first place. Human but not, just new, brand new; Cas is something that has never walked the Earth before and Dean is licking at its teeth. Damn if that isn't a rush like no other.

From this angle he can't see what Sam is up to, not with his mouth slotted tight against Cas', one hand threaded through his wild shock of hair, the other feathering circles around a nipple, but whatever his brother is doing, it must be good because after just a minute or two of it, he can feel Cas start to lock up and freak out underneath him. Close to the edge.

Dean ups the ante on his end for a distraction, teeth sinking into Cas' lip and then pulling back to lave away the sting, dipping in for deep, slick twines with Cas' tongue. In the meantime he lets the hand on Cas' chest wander down, blindly mapping the shape of slim muscle under baby-soft skin until Sam's fingers catch him and guide him in the right direction. Down through the soft crinkle of wiry curls, bared to the air now, to the place where Cas' dick juts up, thick and blood-hot and wet under the pads of his fingers. Wet, Dean realizes with a nitrogen-hot flash, from Sam's mouth.

He doesn't actually mean to pull out of the kiss, doesn't even realize he is until his mouth parts from Cas' with a sucking pop and Cas' hands crash into his skin, clinging for dear life. But he can't not look, like a train wreck or a werebear hurtling down on him; like the too damn many times he's had to watch one or both of them die.

Sam's mouth is shiny, almost as ruddy as the flesh it's wrapped around, stretched more than Dean would have guessed going by Cas' skinny little body. His eyes are only half open, shiny all around them too like maybe Cas isn't the only one who's a little inexperienced here. They're locked upward though, staring down Cas or Dean or both, he can't tell, all heat and sex and that stubborn refusal to let up that Sam's had for as long as Dean can remember. And he can't explain why any of that makes him do it, except that they've veered too far off the road to ever hope to go back, but whatever the reason, Dean presses his fingers in at the hollow of Sam's cheek, feels Cas hard underneath, and then his hand is in Sam's hair, grabbing hold, pushing down.

The moment Sam gags is obvious, this quiet, lewd snik of his throat as his already flushed cheeks brighten. It's the right time for Dean to let up, but somehow he doesn't, somehow he's just watching as he presses against scalp and forces his brother to take a little more, a little more again.

Cas is whispering, "Please, please, please," against Dean's shoulder which isn't exactly stop even if he's sure that's what it means. Slim fingers are digging bruises deep into the muscle of Dean's back while all the rest of Cas just shakes in his arms.

For the first in a long, long time, Dean’s actually thankful for the royal shitstorm that his life has been because for most people, seeing, helping, their brother give a blow job to his more than slightly unwilling boyfriend would be the stuff of long-term, morally decayed nightmares. For Dean it’s just so fucking hot he feels like he's going to die.

He lets Sam up for a shallow, wet drag of air before nudging him down again and Sam doesn't even pretend to fight it. Cas' breath breaks, sweltering and panic-fast against Dean's skin, sounds that either aren't words or - fuck - or are maybe Enochian tumbling over his lips like a prayer that it just might be. Dean wants to hear it, so when he starts mouthing at Cas again he chooses the line of his throat, listening to that rough voice go deep at the same time that Sam does.

There are sharp prickles of pain along Dean's spine where he can only guess Cas' nails have broken the skin and a wetness against the side of his face that he knows with a sick certainty is Cas crying. A part of him would give anything to stop this. It goes against everything he's got, every protect, love, cherish rule he's used in place of a survival instinct all this time, but he also knows he can't. This is just like anything else, first steps, first bike ride, first day of school, first kiss, first permanent goodbye. This is human, the way down deep in the gut terror that some days feels like the only real thing in the world. Cas never got to have most of those other things, probably never will, but they've got this one entirely human moment, maybe the moment Cas really becomes human. And if anyone's going to give that to him, it's going to be Dean and Sam.

"'S ok, Cas, it's ok," he murmurs into the sweat-steeped space behind Cas' ear, biting softly as a distraction. "Just let go, we got you. Not gonna let anything hurt you, ok?" The hand not sunk deep into the damp strands of Sam's hair slides over Cas' arm and shoulder, what little pieces Dean can reach from here, plucking at the bow-string tension all over. "Just let go, Cas. Let us take care of you." His mouth slips into place against Cas', muggy used air curling back and forth between when Cas can't seem to do anything but gasp. "We love you."

Of course Dean knows better, has had plenty of time to get acquainted with the fact that Cas is nothing more than mortal now, but some part of him was still expecting the lightbulbs to blow and the outlets to spark when Cas tenses up that extra impossible bit in his arms and chokes on oxygen. He can feel every pulse of the orgasm ripping through Cas as his body locks up like he's been strapped into an electric chair, rough jolts against-into Dean's hold. Over the hush of it he can hear Sam swallow, messy, loud glugs of his throat working, filling. Christ, Dean's not going to come in his shorts again. He's _not_.

Cas goes boneless so suddenly it's jarring. He flops back against the bed, skin pink and splotchy with heat, making the sheets cling where they meet tacky sweat. Sam's there in an instant, pressing kisses to Cas' cheek, dancing around his mouth as if Cas is going to be skittish about jizz considering he has literally no experience with it.

He's not, of course, turning easily to meet Sam's mouth even though he doesn't manage much besides that on the reciprocating front. Sam doesn't seem to mind as he probes into Cas' mouth, sharing the taste that… that Dean really wants a sample of too.

A touch to the back of his neck is all the suggestion Sam needs to turn and draw Dean in for it, tongue sliding out like a welcome mat, noses bumping because the angle's all wrong and at the same time, perfect, all three of them jammed in together.

Dean has no idea how he ends up all over Sam beyond the fact that it's never going to stop surprising him how much strength Sam’s got in him to throw around when he puts his mind to it.

It's strange like this, much moreso than the other way around because another time, another place, Dean's had Sam in his lap before, a thousand times before, just with a different purpose. This, being the one spread out over Sam, being the _little_ one - and yeah, Sam's been bigger than him since he was 17 but Dean's never really felt it as a fact the way he does right now - it's strange. And kind of thrilling.

There’s a part of him that’s locked up on how not weird it is to have Sam’s tongue flicking at his own. Like he’s about to freak out about the freak out he’s _not_ having. And really, how messed up is that? Less, probably, than how good Sam’s hands feel on him; huge, two fucking forces of nature grabbing him by the ass so his baby brother can grind up against him, making him wonder when exactly Sam ditched his boxers.

Dean startles at the touch of Cas’ cool fingers to his thigh, ends up pulling far enough out of the kiss to remember what oxygen tastes like. Sam doesn’t bother with it, using Cas’ fingers as a sub for Dean’s tongue, slurping and sucking at them. Every single time he ever thought of Sam as a vanilla-ass prude combusts in Dean’s brain and burns itself to ash.

Obviously it’s working for Cas too – he’d have to be brain-dead not to be down for the messy, ravenous kind of head Sam’s giving those couple of lucky fingers, especially after what he just experienced – because he’s struggling to his knees, nearly taking a nosedive when his balance wavers but catches himself with his free hand on Dean’s shoulder. He’s breathing like he just went for a leisurely ten mile sprint, groping all over Dean and Sam and anything between them with frantic enthusiasm. Clearly, he’s going to be a natural at this.

His fingers pull free of Sam’s mouth leaving a wet trail behind that Dean’s licking away before the idea’s even really registered. For all of about three seconds, anyway. Then he’s flat on his back on the bed and he hasn’t got a sweet clue which one of them put him there.

Can’t exactly bring himself to care, either; not with them eyeing him up like prime rib for two

Cas’ eyes are addict bright, his whole body strung tight, liable to vibrate right off the bed any second. Five minutes after blowing his wad and his cock’s already drooling-hard against his stomach. Sam’s grinning over the curve of Cas’ shoulder, dark and possessive. Greedy.

Yeah, that's it exactly. Sam's always been greedy in his own weird way, always wanted things to call his own, all the things he wasn't supposed to have. Looking back, Dean sort of wonders why it never occurred to him that Sam would want all of him too.

All of the both of them, the only real constants in Sam’s life. Well that just hits a little bit too close to home, now doesn’t it?

“C’mere,” he jerks his head for a signal to one or both of them, just somebody to do something to shut his damn brain up. No need to be told twice, they fall on him like carrion, all lips and hands and – fuck – cocks.

All evidence suggests that Dean’s pants spontaneously decide to fuck off and die, which is just fine by Dean. Now he’s got Sam and Cas bare against his skin, shivery trails of precome and spit mapping out his body. Between the two of them there’s no air and no chance to worry about it. He just lets them have at it, grabbing little sips of breath wherever he can when they trade off feeding at his mouth.

Cas is rubbing against his hip with a feverish intensity, nothing but that raw animal drive and it makes Dean a little bit crazy that he - they - can do this to him, make a soldier of God want so much that he can't do anything but feel. And then there's Sam who's all jittery hunger, fondling and groping and - oh fuck - finding that spot on Dean's neck that makes him leak like a faucet. Dean taught the kid how to operate a fork, for crying out loud, there's supposed to be rules or something that keep Sam from playing his body like an instrument.

"Gonna," Dean slurs out, not even sure whose tongue it is he's trying to talk around at the moment.

The question is answered by Sam's voice in his ear, lips butterfly kissing his earlobe when he says, "not yet," and runs right over Dean's argument with, "You ever?" It's Sam's hand, no mistaking it, that palms his drawn-up balls, long middle finger slipping back even further to drag dry over Dean's asshole.

Either it's the oxygen deprivation or the adrenaline or maybe both of them together that just broke him, but Dean's head is spinning. It's really not helping him to deal with the achy, promising pressure of that fingertip or the teeth-achingly sweet, random brushes of soft skin against his cock. Sam presses just a little harder, makes a careful circle with the pad of his finger that makes Dean's stomach clamp tight on something that could very easily be panic or need.

"No," he huffs, fingers knotting up in Cas' hair and making him hold still and take the urgent fuck of Dean's tongue however he feels like giving it.

There have been some girls, adventurous and, ok, occasionally just flat out scary, who've played around with him the way Sam means, slim fingers and tongues and - that one time, at Mardi Gras - a strap on about half as big as what Sammy's got swinging between his legs, but never a guy. Never even the idea of a guy, because, fucked as it is considering where they're at right this very second, Dean's really never been interested in dudes.

The thought makes Dean laugh, only slightly deranged sounding, over Sam's, "Ok."

Dean would have expected some coaxing, even just the slide of Sam's finger up into him on a little spit wouldn't have been entirely unanticipated, but that's not what happens. Instead he gets Sam laid out on top of him again, effectively pinning him to suck at his collarbone while Cas tries to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of his tonsils.

A few minutes later, the reason becomes obvious when Sam murmurs, "Baby," at the place where Cas' lips join with Dean's and gently disentangles Cas' leg from Dean's hip. Cas doesn't surrender his mouth even then, so Dean's not really sure what's going on until he feel Sam's legs part around his hips and the gentle grip around his cock is overwhelmed by a tight, slick, sucking sensation around the tip.

His, "Oh fuck," frees his mouth, making Cas whine pitifully until he seems to figure out that something’s up and shoots a glance at Sam. One look and he shudders so hard that Dean's not entirely convinced that Cas didn't just come again all over the bed, un-fucking-touched but then again, he's not really in a state of mind to be evaluating current events. In fact, his state of mind has pretty well narrowed down to 'Sam has a fantastic ass.'

Sam groans as he takes it in, slow but relentless, all the way down until he's grinding against the pan of Dean's pelvis. Later they're going to have a serious discussion about what Sam's been doing in his free time all these years but right now Dean can't manage to be anything but grateful that his brother apparently knows what he's doing.

And, God, does he ever. His first couple of moves are slow, so damn tight that Dean's embarrassingly close to sobbing at how good it feels. Then Sam starts to get into it, working himself up and down in a fluid motion, abs and thighs rippling with every thrust. His dick is bobbing between them, so hard it looks painful, and, well, maybe not pretty, but… yeah, sort of pretty. As if Dean didn't have enough issues to deal just from _fucking his brother_ , now he has to think Sam has a pretty cock too.

Of course, Sam also has this knack of doing some sort of twisty, squirmy thing at just the right moment on the downstroke to raze Dean's nerves like a car bomb. Kind of makes it hard to complain. Or think. Christ, Sam’s a good lay.

When Cas touches him next it’s really Cas – not out of his head on the flush of sex for the very first time and not overwhelmed by the tentative uncertainty that’s characterized every single human thing he’s ever done since long before he actually became one. It’s both and neither, the way he’s always been, always will be to Dean.

His mouth opens, warm and wet over Dean’s skin, a few inches shy of actually touching his nipple, nothing but humid breath for a second before the hesitant, hot touch of the tip of his tongue. In an instant he melts into it, long open-mouthed kisses that sneak across Dean’s skin like he’s expecting to be called down for it any second.

Dean doesn’t even realize his hand is on the back of Cas’ neck until Sam’s joins it there, tangles their fingers up together and drags a rumbling moan out of Cas.

He’s arching up under both of them, conscious coordination long since eroded. Sam’s in the same boat, tightening back up around Dean as he tries to keep riding in fits and starts. How close he is obvious in the stutter of his breath and as much as Dean’s dying to know if this is all it would take, if Sammy really could make himself lose it from nothing more than Dean pushed all the way up inside of him, more than that, at least this time, he wants to feel it happen, grab onto those last gossamer threads of Sam’s control and twist until he’s free falling, at Dean’s mercy.

It has him reaching out to wrap a fist around Sam’s dick, velvet over hot steel. A rough blurt of sound punches out of Sam, so deep and guttural Dean can feel the clench of it around the head of his cock. That’s enough to get Cas’ attention. Apparently enough to completely distract him, giving up on doing anything more than rubbing at Dean with his cheek while they both watch Sam’s back bow and his mouth go slack.

“Say it,” Sam’s big hand splays across Dean’s jaw, the way he’s clawing at the brink broadcasting into Dean through the tremble of his fingertips, “Call me Sammy.”

Dean almost doesn’t get the chance because just the idea ricochets through all of them, chaos theory in motherfucking action. Cas’ body becomes one tense line plastered to his side and he cannot be coming again but he sure is shaking like it, slim fingers biting white splotches where he’s clawing at the meat of Sam’s thigh. Dean just fucking ignites, every wicked, wrong piece of him that makes him want this lighting up like the Vegas strip at the needless reminder that _this. Is. Sam._

It’s probably the leap of his cock that actually pushes Sam over, a twitch hard enough that he sees the echo of it on Sam’s face, but Dean manages to choke out his brother’s name anyway, the little kid version of it that Sam’s bitched about for years, the last syllable still crackling on his tongue when the first white streak hits his chest.

Anyone who could hang on after that would have to be less than dickless – deaf, blind and dead _maybe_ Dean would have a shot at keeping it together, but he’s not, so he doesn’t. Bliss so hot it tips over into cold roars through him, nailing him with a tire iron to the skull before tripping back down and arrowing into his dick, up and out in pulses that slick up the heat clinging to him. He doesn’t know if Cas is being helpful when he grabs Sam’s hip and screws him down that fraction of an inch further onto Dean or if he just thinks is as stupid-hot as Dean does that he’s making a mess of Sam so deep inside, but either way, he thoroughly approves.

It feels like a long time and no time at all later when Sam gingerly pulls off of him, just far enough to collapse on Cas’ other side, bundling him in close to Dean’s body. Of course Sam would have brought him up to be a cuddler; big freaking girl.

“You ok, baby?” Sam asks softly. He’s petting at Cas’ hair, nibbling kisses at his temple, down his cheekbone.

Cas opens his mouth to say, “I-“ licks his lips, blinks at Dean. “Yes.” He smiles, just a little one. It’s more than enough.

Dean keeps catching himself bracing for the feelings he should have been having all along to come flooding in any second. But they don’t. There’s no churn in his gut over how wrong this is, on how many different levels, no sense of failure or guilt that he has every right to. Not even jealousy – over which one of them, he’s not even sure, but there seems like there ought to be some. All he’s got is this settled sensation, like he finally fits right in his skin. It’s been so long since he felt it, he hadn’t even realized it was missing.

Sam’s voice breaks into his thoughts. “What?” he’s asking, hint of a smile darkening the corner of his mouth.

Dean mirrors it back, turning up the wattage for good measure. He finds Sam’s arm looped around Cas’ waist and locking in his own next to it, his hand on the texture of Sam’s ribs, still feels weird, but a good kind of weird maybe. A kind of weird he’d definitely like to get better acquainted with.

“Nothing,” he says, and dips down to lay a kiss over Cas’ lips, lower still to a mark on his neck that could belong to either one of them.

Two sets of heavy eyes glitter back at him in the light of cheap bulbs and snow-glare siphoning under the curtains. Dean starts taking a mental tally of everything they have with them that could potentially be suitable for consumption. He’s starting to get the feeling he’s going to need his energy tonight.

***

The shunk of the Impala’s trunk closing is loud in the stillness. Not like it matters, Jonas Hartley’s ghosts hasn’t gone anywhere for close to a century, a little noise probably isn’t going to scare him off. Sam’s staring up at the black hulk of the old Victorian, sizing up the front steps leading to askew door. Dean’s got a few concerns about the abused wood holding their weight too. Still, it’s that or go in through the basement and in Dean’s experience, nothing good ever happens in basements.

Cas hefts the sawed-off in his hands, fidgeting with the weight. Using physical weapons isn’t yet second nature to him and his preference still slides toward blades if he has a choice, but he’s a decent shot and he seems to be adjusting as well as could be expected. It’s going to take a while for him before pointing a gun comes easy as breathing the way it does for Dean and Sam, but they’ve got time. Nothing but time, in fact.

Dean tosses an extra canister of kerosene to Sam just in case, hands Cas the salt while he feeds rounds into his own gun. It should be an easy enough case, but Dean’s still being cautious. So far nothing’s happened with Sam on a hunt, but he can’t pretend that the odds aren’t against them that nothing ever will.

They’ve been easing back into the game, salt and burns mostly, though there was a string of killings in Bowie, Indiana last month that Dean would bet his eye teeth is a werewolf. Sam’s got it on his mind, already sneaking in research whenever Dean will let him get away with it. He’s got the itch too, to take on something real, but he’s also got a bruise the size of a baseball on his ribs from Sam’s latest vacation from reality, so he’s not committing one way or another just yet. Cas has been very studiously not taking a side in the argument.

This thing between the three of them is still new; fresh, tender skin over a wound left open too long. Dean trusts the both of them with his life, has had them both earn it more than once, but it’s still a lot to risk. More than Dean’s really comfortable admitting out loud.

They’ve got another two weeks before the full moon anyway. They’ll figure it out.

“Ready,” he says, not a question because he already knows the answer.

Sam throws a dimple at him, greyscale in the night, eager eyes and flexing fingers. “Let’s go.” He winks at Cas, brushes against him just a little too much to count as casual. It earns him a glare and a shotgun cock – Cas doesn’t find it nearly as funny as they do that he pops wood at the drop of a hat.

Cautiously Dean makes his way up to the front door. The steps creak ominously beneath him, but hold. He can’t see much through the grime crusted over the windows into the foyer, but the blueprints in the town records put the kitchen straight down to hall toward the back and if there’s anything to the local lore, that’s where they should find the bones.

Behind him he can feel Sam’s heat radiating against his back along with a nervy kind of tension that hunts always bring. Cas’ boots shuffle one step down from Sam, probably riding the same edgy excitement.

The front door is enough of a mess that a stiff breeze would probably do it in, but what the hell, who’s Dean to deny himself the small joys in life?

One kick sends the door crashing into the hallway, falling dejectedly into a staircase that has long since given up the fight. Something makes a noise in the direction of the kitchen. Could be a rat, but Dean knows better.

He gives one last look over his shoulder, meets twin looks on anticipation from Sam and Cas. His family. Who’da thunk.

“Yeah,” he says, lifting his own sawed-off to his shoulder, “Let’s do this.”


End file.
